"...But Mr. Pacelle said in a telephone interview that this was only about
10 percent of the number of "downer" animals slaughtered every
year. "For them to be guaranteeing the food supply is safe is
completely bogus," he said. "
[AND HOW CONCERNED ARE THEY ABOUT OUR SAFETY? THEY FIGHT IN COURT
TO KEEP INSANE POLICIES GOING: ]
The diagnosis in Washington State came just a week after a federal
appeals court in New York revived a lawsuit brought by an animal
rights group that says that the Agriculture Department has not done
enough to protect consumers from mad cow disease. The group, Farm
Sanctuary, maintained in a 1998 lawsuit that the government's policy
of allowing the slaughter of animals that cannot walk poses a
significant health risk to consumers. A judge threw out the suit,
saying the danger was remote, but the Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit overturned that decision last week.
[YOU READ THAT RIGHT...THEY CURRENTLY ALLOW THE "SLAUGHTER"
OF DOWNER COWS...INTO YOUR FOOD SUPPLY... -ED]
* * *
Mad Cow Disease Detected in USA
December 24, 2003
Web Note: The news that Mad Cow disease has been detected in the US
comes as no surprise to the Organic Consumers Association. Unless the
meat and dairy industry stops feeding slaughterhouse wastes to
animals, and unless the U.S. Government starts testing every animal
before slaughter, steps already taken in the European Union, the
disease will spread further in cattle and humans. For a full
description of the problem in the beef and livestock industry and
America's regulatory agencies see OCA's comprehensive web site
<http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm>
Note that Mad Cow Disease has never been detected in an animal raised
for its entire life on an organic farm, even in the U.K. Organic
standards prohibit the feeding of slaughterhouse wastes to animals.
December 24, 2003
Countries Ban American Beef After First Mad Cow Case By MATTHEW
L. WALD and ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 A sick cow slaughtered about two weeks ago near
Yakima, Wash., has tested positive for mad cow disease in early
laboratory results, the first such case in the United States, the
secretary of agriculture said on Tuesday.
Shortly after the announcement, Japan said it was banning imports of
American beef. The South Korean agriculture ministry said in a
statement that South Korea was also halting American beef imports and
that it was pulling American beef products off supermarket shelves.
[On Wednesday morning, Russia, Thailand and Hong Kong also announced
that they too were banning imports of American beef products.]
American agriculture officials are likely to announce as early as
Wednesday a voluntary recall on beef they hope to trace to the plants
where the cow was slaughtered and processed, said Dr. Elsa Murano, the
under secretary for food safety.
"We are considering if we need to take that step, but it's likely to
happen," Dr. Murano said in an interview.
Federal officials did not say where the meat is now, but the
agriculture secretary, Ann M. Veneman, said the meat supply was safe
because of precautions taken over the last decade to keep the nerve
tissue of slaughtered beef out of the food supply. Only the brain,
spinal cord and related parts can spread the disease to humans,
Ms. Veneman said, and she added that she intended to serve beef to her
family at Christmas.
"This finding, while unfortunate, does not pose any kind of
significant risk to the human food chain," she said at a news briefing
here tonight.
While agriculture officials urged the public not to overreact to the
discovery, Dr. W. Ron DeHaven, the chief veterinary officer for the
Agriculture Department, said: "This is certainly a big concern. We now
have evidence of a disease that we didn't have before in the U.S."
Agriculture officials and leaders of the beef industry were
particularly concerned about the impact on domestic sales and beef
exports. They are eager to avoid a repetition of the crisis that hit
Europe in the 1980's and 1990's. Mad cow disease was first diagnosed
in Britian in 1986. It spread through 180,000 livestock, led to the
deaths of more than 100 people and prompted the United States and
other countries to ban beef imports.
In May, when a single case of mad cow disease, known formally as
bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was found in Alberta, Canada, a
number of countries, including the United States, banned the import of
Canadian beef. The ban has been eased somewhat, and imports of
boneless cuts and from cattle younger than 30 months have resumed.
No cases have turned up in people from the Canadian beef.
Federal officials say the cow in the Washington case, a Holstein, was
traced to a farm in Mabton, about 40 miles southeast of Yakima. The
farm has been quarantined, Dr. Veneman said.
The sample was taken on Dec. 9, the same day the cow was slaughtered.
Inspectors took a sample because the cow was a "downer animal," which
Ms. Veneman said meant "nonambulatory." A fraction of all cows that
cannot walk < a symptom of the disease < are tested.
Nerve tissue from the cow was tested at a government laboratory in
Ames, Iowa, establishing a "presumptive" diagnosis, she said, and a
military jet is flying a sample to a laboratory in England for a
definitive diagnosis. No result is expected for several days, but the
government was proceeding as if the finding was conclusive, she said.
The development is likely to be a serious blow for ranchers, feed-lot
operators and slaughterhouses. About 10 percent of American beef
production is exported, industry officials say.
McDonald's, Burger King and Wal-Mart Stores quickly said they did not
believe they had received meat from the animal. And almost as soon as
Ms. Veneman finished her news conference, officials of the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association began a conference call to seek to
reassure consumers. Terry Stokes, chief executive of the group,
referred to a "triple firewall" to prevent the introduction or spread
of the disease.
Mr. Stokes said these safeguards consisted of testing animals that
arrive at slaughterhouses unable to walk, forbidding imports of cattle
and bovine products from countries where the disease is present and
banning material derived from cows for use as cow feed. That is meant
to prevent the transfer of aberrant proteins, called prions, which are
believed to cause the disease.
Investigators are still trying to determine how and when the cow was
processed.
"First we have to determine where the stuff went," Dr. Murano said.
"That will determine how big the recall is," with officials hoping to
recall any Washington beef that may have become mixed with and
contaminated by the diseased cow.
Dr. Murano said it was possible that the contaminated beef had already
been distributed and eaten, but she said that even in that case she
did not believe it posed a risk to consumers because the processed
parts did not include the tissue that has been shown to carry the
disease. Or the beef could have been frozen "and it may all be sitting
in a warehouse somewhere," she said.
Dr. Murano said she expected the recall to be a Class 2, the middle
grade in the three-tiered system the U.S.D.A. uses to rank the
severity of the health risk. "This is a voluntary thing out of an
abundance of caution," she said.
Despite the evident failure of the system to prevent the case in
Washington, Mr. Stokes said that consumers should have confidence in
the food supply because there is no evidence that the disease is
transmissible through muscle meat. Such a reassurance is critical,
since Agriculture Department officials said that meat from the
infected animal < but not tissue from its central nervous system < had
been sent to at least two other processing plants.
Critics say that the safeguards are not perfect. Among the problems,
they say, is that machines that strip meat scraps from carcasses can
contaminate the meat with tissue from the nervous system. Critics also
say that regulations to prevent contamination of cattle food with
nerve tissue are unevenly enforced.
"We put a number of measures in place that we thought would
substantially reduce our chance of seeing mad cow disease in this
country, but clearly those methods fell short of perfect," said
Dr. Fred Cohen, a professor of pharmacology at the University of
California at San Francisco and a leading expert on ways to treat
prion diseases.
Still, Dr. Cohen said, the risk is low.
"One can derive a fair bit of comfort from statistics and
epidemiology," he said. "When there were 60,000 to 80,000 infected
cows in the U.K., approximately 150 people out of 60 million developed
the disease," he said. "One cow is not likely to translate into any
cases" in the United States, he said.
[What he forgets to say is that there are 200,000 downer
cows...pre YEAR in the U.S...who knows how many have BSE?
He also forgets to tell you that the 150 deaths are seen
by experts are very possibly the tip of the iceberg given
the 5 to *20* year incubation in humans. What a twit. This is how
"officials" try to "reassure" the public so Business As Usual
can continue" -ED]
The disease, commonly abbreviated as B.S.E., makes brain tissue spongy
and full of holes. Sheep, deer and elk can also get spongiform
encephalopothies. The human form, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
kills about 250 Americans a year. In most cases the cause is unknown.
The possibility of an infected cow renewed calls to end the slaughter
of animals that cannot walk. Wayne Pacelle, the vice president of the
Humane Society of the United States, said that such animals are pushed
by bulldozers or dragged by chains, and are a threat to the food
supply.
Ms. Veneman said in the news conference that her department had tested
20,526 head of cattle for mad cow disease this year, triple the level
of last year.
But Mr. Pacelle said in a telephone interview that this was only about
10 percent of the number of "downer" animals slaughtered every
year. "For them to be guaranteeing the food supply is safe is
completely bogus," he said.
The diagnosis in Washington State came just a week after a federal
appeals court in New York revived a lawsuit brought by an animal
rights group that says that the Agriculture Department has not done
enough to protect consumers from mad cow disease. The group, Farm
Sanctuary, maintained in a 1998 lawsuit that the government's policy
of allowing the slaughter of animals that cannot walk poses a
significant health risk to consumers. A judge threw out the suit,
saying the danger was remote, but the Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit overturned that decision last week.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/inusa122403.cfm
* * *
PROTECT YOUR HEALTH AND THE HEALTH OF YOUR FAMILY:
MORE INFO, UPDATED CONSTANTLY, IS AT:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm
ALSO WWW.VEGANMD.ORG AND CLICK ON "TALKS" TO LISTEN TO PHYSICIAN
MICHAEL GREGER WHO HAS SPOKEN OUT ABOUT THIS SINCE THE EARLY 1990S
= = = =
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IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
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