Mad Cow found in Washington state

[fishing is life]

The first confrimed case of Mad Cow disease has been found in Washington state.

[blacktail]

Great. I guess we should expect beef prices to increase again!

Mike

[WheresMyBobber]

I guess we should expect beef prices to increase again!

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">I don't think they can go much higher can they? :shocked: I can't believe the price of beef these days.

[mike5097]

The butcher at Safeway told me the reason beef prices are so high right now is that there is a ban on importing Canadian beef because of mad cow disease in Canada.

I don't know if that is true or not, but it looks like I am going to have to move out of Multnomah county to afford to buy beef anymore.

Mike

[Big TULE]

Who needs beef when you have elk to eat...

[happybrew]

Chicken: It's what's for dinner!

happybrew

[Cosmic Lazy Susan]

What seems strange to me is that they identified the cow as having 'Mad Cow' disease, removed the brain, spinal cord and lower part of the small intestine, then sent the meat on to be processed. Apparently they're now trying to track where the meat went.

Why didn't they just destroy the whole cow?

Dale

[lost_sailor]

Where did that information come from? The Associated Press reports:

" a single Holstein cow that was either sick or injured — thus never destined for the U.S. food supply — tested presumptively positive for the brain-wasting illness."

[Cosmic Lazy Susan]

It comes from the Associated Press as did this.

"The cow, from a farm near Yakima, Wash., was slaughtered Dec. 9. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said parts of the animal went to three processing plants in Washington State."

And this.

"Agriculture Department officials and cattle industry executives tried to allay fears that American beef supplies had become infected, saying the U.S. inspection system was working effectively: The farm where the cow originated has been quarantined and officials were tracing the movement of the cow from the farm to the slaughterhouse, and the flow of the meat to processing plants."

Common sense, whether the meat poses a hazard or not, is to not send any of it to a processing plant. If for no other reason than to hold down the ensuing alarm.

I think somebody used some very poor judgement.

Dale

[Woody]

All the more reason to raise your own. The home grown beef biz is gonna be even better this year.

[TheRogue]

I just don't understand why an animal which was NOTICEABLY ill, was slaughtered and processed with everthing else!!! Did we learn NOTHING from the disaster in Britain??

Oops, forgot.... $$$$

TR

[Freakwater]

Did anyone see the story on "Downer Cows" last night? I think it was on 12. Apparently it is standard operating proceedure to butcher sick and dying cattle or "downer cows". Seemed easy for a "mad cow" to slip in. Unreal.

Freak
Team He Who Smelt It

[FEAR NO FISH!]

How did they find my ex-wife?

[DanS]

Let's not forget the brainstorm that led to the whole Mad Cow (BSE) outbreak...........feeding scrapie-infected sheep to cattle.

Who came up with THAT brilliant idea?

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

The practice of sending "Downer" cattle into the human food supply is totally unnacceptable. I started eating only organic free range beef, chicken, etc... years ago. I don't eat any ground processed meat products. There was an episode on Frontline that did an upclose on the hamburger industry. From the feedlot to the table. It was quite informative and disgusting.

The taxpayers promote the beef industry by paying for all those "Beef its for dinner" commercials. To thank us they feed us diseased animals that have to be dragged into the slaughterhouse.

Congress recently had the opportunity to ban the practice of using downer cattle for human consumption. They chose not to. I imagine that this issue will be revisited and that the practice will be banned.

I just don't understand the logic in sending the meat products into the system and saving the brain and spinal cord for testing because they were suspicious of the animal. Now they are trying to track that meat down. And it was processed December 9th.

I'll be eating a free range Rocky chickens and seafood exclusively for the next couple of weeks.

[bllelk]

Heavy Metal
The Beef ads are paid for by the livestock operators when they sell their cattle. Not tax payers.
I know, I did it.

[Neff]

The case of Mad Cow disease brokme out right by my uncles ranch. Its his neighboor.... I dont plan on visiting that set of relatives for a while hahaha

[jocose]

whats up with cows anyhow? all they got to do is eat green grass all day and make pies.... why they would be mad is beyond me.... i say cheer up mooers, no reason to be mad... its christmas and we are eating turkey so chew your cud, thank your lucky stars that your not a christmas goose... mad geese... now that i can understand... happy happy merry merry , joco

[ultralight]

Watch for falling beef prices. With all the major US beef importers banning our beef, not to mention all the people here avoiding beef, there should be a surplus of beef. I think I'll go on Atkins diet right about now [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img]

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

My error bllelk

Established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill, the checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle and a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products.


None of that suspect cow should have made it into the food supply though. It has most likely already been consumed.

[garyk]

I think it's the same AP report quoted earlier that claims last year in the USA, 200,000 'downer' cattle were slaughtered for human food.

Would you eat a deer that couldn't walk?

(I can tell ya, we sure wouldn't.)

[Uglygreen]

A lot of misinformation here - check your sources AP didnt get it right.

1) Any sick "downer" cow that is sent to be slaughtered is not sent into the human beef supply. Used for a varity of things from leather to bone meal to fertalizer, etc... Also beef are not fed reprocessed ruminate (beef, sheep, horses, etc...) products anymore, since 1997 if I remember correctly. Also, old or sick or dry dairy cows are not usually sent into the human beef supply. Injured - not sick - cows are sometimes let into the human food supply after being examined by a vet for signs of a disease.

2) Normally they pull specimens from every "downer" (injured or sick) animal for lab testing for various diseases. Once the specimens are pulled the rest of the carcass is sent on for processing. It would be impossible to store and quarentine the carcasses from every sick or injured animal slaughtered while doing the lab testing. Since there is virtually no danger to humans or other livestock from the carcass of a sick animal there is little reason to hold on to it.

3) Once the lab tests are completed the results are sent back to the farmer and to agriculture authorities for further action if required. Obviously infectious things like mad cow, bovine tuburculosis, etc... are far more serious than more run of the mill stuff of intrest primarly to the local farmer like bladder infections and vitamin deficiencies.

4) If something like mad cow is detected, the herd is quarentined, there is obviously great intrest in finding out exactly how the animal contracted the disease, what path (called a vector) the disease got to the cow, etc... Also any links the disease may have had to spread - animals from the same herd sold off location, surrounding farms, etc - are tracked down, tested, possibly quarentined, and even destroyed if necessary. Where the carcass, or parts thereof, went to from the slaughterhouse is of intrest only to verify its destruction and sanitize those locations.

This is just an overview of what happens and what is happening now. These procedures have been in place for some time, and the danger to humans (or even other livestock) from one isolated case is VERY, extremely minimal. Obvbviously this is just an overview, and I may have forgotten something, but I hope it helps with some of the misinformation on this thread. Ignore the media hype, as usual they seem to know little and while saying a lot.

UG

[ 12-24-2003, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Uglygreen ]

[The Overfishin Condition]

UG, I just got finished reading all the information, then I get to your signature line... [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img] But I'll take what you said as factual, and in turn, thank you for clearing some things up... And I know, my signature line isn't much better.

[sliverslinger]

Hunt more and eat less beef. Elk and deer is better for you anyway. I am glad I have a freezer full of elk. I got lucky this year.

[elkaholic]

Great explaination of the system UG. Indeed it is fortunate this animal was picked up in the surveillance system. She went to the slaughter facility because of paralysis in the hind end due to calving problems so that is why she was unable to walk.

I too prefer a good chicken fried elk steak. But, tomorrow I'll eat BEEF and am not fearful of getting something, other than a belly ache from too much.

Merry Merry

[Mr. Carp]

UG, Good job clearing that up. People with misinformed information do not help a thread and you have cleared some misconseptions up. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

TV pieces on farming usually never show the entire story. Most cows that are sent to slaughter that look sick, are usually injured from something, but are still alive to get to the slaughter house. Just because a cow is paralyzed in the hind quarters doesn't mean it has Mad Cow.

Eat Beef! (and elk and deer)

Just a little observation from someone who has grown up around cattle

[DanS]

It's true we shouldn't freak out about this, but it IS a serious matter. Mad Cow disease doesn't just happen. This animal contracted it, and we need to find out how.

Don't forget that there are herds of elk around the country, and deer also, that have contracted a similar wasting disease. In fact, there had been cases of spongiform encephalopathy in wild animals documented well before any showed up in herd animals in the US.

Some interesting points about Scrapie/BSE/CJD:

1987- the connection is made between scrapie (found in sheep) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) when a wasting disease is identified in a herd of cattle in Britain.

1989- The UK bans the use of offal in cattle feed after they theorize that feeding cattle scrapie-infected sheep carcasses has led to the new BSE variant.

1992- Two farmers with BSE infected herds die of apparent Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD).

1994- Animals born after the ban on offal in feed contract BSE, showing a vertical transmission between mother and offspring.

156 cases of the new CJD variant have been diagnosed in Britain since 1990. 22 of these individuals have donated blood at one time or another.

"Kuru", a chronic wasting disease similar to CJD found in primitive tribes in New Guinea, has shown an average incubation period of 5.2 years.

Chronic wasting disease has been identified in several elk herds around the US.


One thing is clear about BSE/CDJ. We don't know enough about either to declare our food supply is either safe or dangerous. Clearly, more people have died from e. coli and listeria outbreaks than CJD, but CJD is scarier because you don't eat a burger and come down with CJD two days later. There could possibly be many people, especially in Britain, who are already infected and don't even know it yet.

It's kinda scary stuff, but I feel pretty confident that our meat supply is pretty safe. We know what to look for now, where during the initial outbreak in Britain it was unclear what they were dealing with.

You can do some reading on scrapie/BSE/CJD by clicking the link below.

http://www.priondata.org/data/A_intro.html#food

[Silver Hilton]

I believe chronic wasting disease is also a problem in many deer herds around the US, including here in Washington.

I feel sorry for the poor beef ranchers that can't catch a break. Beef prices were finally getting up where a farmer could make a buck, and now this will just hammer them. Pretty crummy Christmas present for them.

I think I'm gonna stick with fish and cicken for a while.

[dampainter]

I agree with ultrabright, seems if other nations ban our meat that that would bring the price down?

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

I think it is more lack of information than misinformation. The majority of consumers would probably not be buying bulk ground beef if they knew that it could be old dairy cattle.

This downer cow obviously made it into the human food supply that is why several local supermarkets pulled all thier ground beef.

I have no problem with a choice cut of beef from Wild Oats, Whole Foods, or New Seasons markets. These stores sell local grain fed beef. And it is delicious.

Unfortunately our economy and those who make a living in the beef industry are going to suffer. We did not need this.

I am of the belief that if the animal is sick it should be destroyed. Not fed to consumers that think they are eating quality product. Many people don't know the difference between choice, cab, usda grade A, etc... They just assume that they are eating meat from a healthy animal.

The use of downer cattle for food can be compared to taking a dark beat up salmon and serving it to your guests. If you season it right they might not know the difference. Just like if you grind a rotten dairy cow in with some scraps of good cow the consumer will never know the difference.

[Bill Monroe]

SH...chronic wasting has not yet been detected in Washington, Idaho, BC, or Oregon. It affects wild mule and whitetail deer in pockets of most rocky mountain states and much of the plains and Wisconsin and farmed elk in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

[Born to be Wild]

A very good friend of mine who lives on the Clackamas River is the foreman for Interstate Meat Company.
He told me today on the phone that he and his girlfriend might both be out of a job.
The mad cow went through their plant and all of their customers like Freddy's, Winco, ect have dropped them.

My friend Ron has worked for Interstate for many years and makes a good living working for them.
It's too bad that they could possibly loose their security and high paying jobs over something the company had no control over.

Interstate is huge and for the most part just grinds burger anymore.
They used to bone out the animals there also but now just do the grind.
I met Ron about 15 years ago when he was cutting game for an independent meat shop at night while working full time for Interstate.
He's quite impressive to watch as he can take a deer hanging and bone out and stake it out in 20 minutes.
And it is done right and without any waste.
I guess you can figure out who cuts my game. :grin:

Some of you might know Ron's very sweet and cute daughter Veronica that has worked at Fisherman's Marine in Oregon City for quite a few years now.

I hope for the best for Ron who is a very dedicated hard worker and hope the plant doesn't close.

Dano

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

That's just awful about your friend Born to be Wild. I hope they make it through this ok. The people that will suffer the most from this are our friends and neighbours.

If that cow had been destroyed it would never have made it to Interstate meats.

We need a total ban on downer cattle, period. I don't know of anyone that would knowingly eat these cattle.

It's really no suprise. It was just a matter of time. We have the largest beef industry in the world. Our controls will need to be adjusted. The British test every cow for BSE.

We are fortunate because our system works. This will not be anything like what happened in England. Changes will be made after this. I am proud of our government for the way that it handled this issue and told the world that we had a problem. The public was informed and the consequences were accepted.

Unfortunately people are going to suffer because of this. But people are also going to be more informed about what they eat. Now that people learn what goes into thier food I hope things will change. Feeding downer cattle to people is just plain wrong.

[fishing is life]

Too bad the media likes to hype this stuff up and get us all scared. They keep showing the same clip of that mad cow falling over. I agree that downer cows should not enter the food chain. I for sure will think twice about eating ground beef in the future unitl some changes are made. Hopefully this is a cow that got BSE 5 years ago before they banned meat/bone meal and it just showed up now. Too bad it will take an incident like this to affect some changes. There probably should be testing done on healthy cows too.

FNF - that one was good. :grin:

[kayakfisher]

Everyhead of cattle to be eaten should be tested..before any meat is released. If the industry and the feds geared up for that the cost per head would be fairly low...and in fact it is likely that this current fiasco will exceed that by quite a bit.

This is a disease that could have no symptoms in many cows and to be totally sure it does not enter the human food chain 100 percent testing will likely be needed. The relative cost to do that is very managable.

It is not possible to be 100 percent sure that all cattle do not get infected..therefore we have no other choise but to test them all. I am not totally sure, but I suspect Europe and England are now testing all the cattle destined for slaughter.

M.

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

It's starting to look like they traced the cow back to Canada. That would be good news for US ranchers.

[jet]

Hi all

I may be wrong here but the problem is really limited to Ground Beef. Ground beef may be a mixture of trimmed beef of primal cuts and various parts of the animal such as tissues and other material (use your imagination on this)

I would suspect that primal cuts such as Top Sirloin, T-Bone, and Roast… etc. you get the idea, might not be a problem if I understand the problem correctly. If I do understand it a person might just stay away from lower grade Ground products (commonly labeled at 10-20% fat) due to the nature of where the products comes from. It has become a matter of economics when the meat Processing plant and Retailer need a lower priced product they have looked at ways to get the cost down, that is how you can buy ground beef for .99 a pound. That gets us back to the problem here; the real possibility of other than Primal cut meat items in the ground product (that is why they call it Ground Beef, its all parts of the beef including possibly the brain)

A wise person might stay away from all ground animal products because you really cannot identify what the ground product may be without proper labeling, ground from what primal cut? Even ground poultry is ground with other parts such as skin… get the cost down.

On the beef category again, I might even say that ground beef that is of the higher fat percentage which are not labeled the way products should be could be a problem. That brings me to Ground Sirloin, actually it may be the safest ground product because it has to be labeled what primal cut the product comes from. There are several problems here and it does start with the feed lots that fatten up the beef before they transport them to the packing houses. The feed lots see thousands of cattle and can quickly notice a problem animal if they want to see them. Second there may need to be better labeling and a consumer that will pay more for properly labeled products.

I really feel that if some of this made the news part of the Beef industry may not take as large of a hit during this tough time.

Let’s not even begin to talk about what they do with the products that are not used for human consumption and how there are no safeguards and standards.


Jet~~~

[ 12-27-2003, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: jet ]

[Woody]

OK, Let me straighten you out Jet. My father was in the meat business for 35 years, my wife is in the biz now, and I used to work at Interstate Meats, one the companys that the meat from the infected cow was shipped. Interstate used to have their own boning line, but now they buy it boneless from other plants. They are a major producer of ground beef, they supply Safeway, Albertsons, and United Grocers (Thriftway, Sentry) among others. They also have a frozen patty line.

Lots of misinformation in this thread, I'll just start this with this for now.

Ground beef, no matter what the fat percent must, by law, contain ONLY skeletal muscle meat, no organs. The source of this meat can come from various sources, including dairy cattle that have reached the end of their careers, dairy bulls and beef bulls that can no longer "produce", and beef brood cows that at the end of their careers. If ground beef has anything other than muscle meat (soy protein and hearts are the big two) it must be labeled as such. Read the label, it will say.

You are correct in saying that if they name the primal, ie; ground chuck, round, or sirloin, it must come from those parts. Years ago, all ground beef used to be labeled chuck, round, and sirloin, no matter what the source, not any more though. Now they use the terms, extra lean, lean, and regular. If I remember correctly, 20-30% is regular, 19%-22% is lean, 14%-16 is extra lean and super lean 5%-9%.

The blame for this lands squarely on the shoulders of the USDA. The meat from this animal should have never entered the system until the results from it's tests were known. Furthermore, "downer" cows shouldn't even be considered for slaughter.

[ 12-27-2003, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: Woody ]

[jet]

by law, contain ONLY skeletal muscle meat, no organs.

That is possibly the key here. Is it possible for a portion of organ meat to get into the grind? I bet it is possible for a company to try to make it in a competative market and try to ad fill material into the grind. I know that inspectors continually try to keep watch but can it happen I would say yes.

Fat and organ material is simular color when it is in the grind totes.

I am not talking about the local news. I am suggesting that it might have been happening in other areas of the world.

Do we agree that the problem is with ground beef? Not primal cuts?

When hearts are used it mainly used as fill or to ad color to the grind so it has a better bloom when it is in the meat case. There is nothing wrong with hearts.

Jet~~~

[ 12-27-2003, 05:14 PM: Message edited by: jet ]

[skrimmy]

Jet, sorry, but your facts are dead wrong. I spent many a year in the meat business, both wholesale as well as retail, as well as managing a meat department for one of the largest grocery chains in the world. I've been away from the meat industry for as long as I was in it, but can guarantee that no organs go into your ground meat. Period. Does not happen. It's all muscle tissue and fat (whatever percentage listed). Unless labeled otherwise, that's all you're getting. To do differently would be an isolated case of some meatcutter grossly breaking the law.

But, many of the laws that govern the meat industry are as old as 100 years. The meat industry needs some major cleaning up as far as inspections and regulations go.

All that said, I won't buy super market ground meat for other reasons. I'll buy a nice cut (like a boneless chuck roast) and grind it at home myself. I know exactly what goes into my burger that way.

I watched a documentary a year ago that was rather alarming to me and it's at that point that I swore off supermarket ground meat. It showed how easily it is for meat from as many as 4000 heads of cattle to be in that one lone hamburger patty you eat. Pretty alarming if you ask me.

I don't believe for one second too that there is no way (as they said) that some spinal tissue, however small, can not get into the the meat when it is processed.

A steer, once ready for processing, is hung by a hook and cut with a power saw. The steer is cut right down the middle, seperating the left side from the right. Guess what's right down the middle....you guessed it...the spinal cord.

Just as you get sawdust when you cut wood, you get bonedust when you cut bones. You also get part of the spinal cord mixed in there as you cut that animal down the middle. The only way not to is to de-bone the animal whole, but I've never heard of that being done. That's not to say now, that the bonedust gets all over the rest of the meat, the primal cuts are still intact. But, there can, and are, are still small traces of that bonedust on the primal cuts that just cannot be removed 100% before they are sent to market.

Of the main cuts of beef that have bone along the spinal column - Chuck - Rib - and Loin (T-bone, proterhouse) - without a single exception, I NEVER once saw one of those primal cut come into the supermarket level for processing that DID NOT have the spinal cord still present. So, it's absurd to me that the meat industry is trying to tell us it was removed before sending the beef to packing plants for further processing as they did with this animal. I don't believe it for a second.

In the 10 plus years I worked in a supermarket, ground beef was always shipped in the same way. We receieved it in either 10# or 20# tubes, and was ground once at the packing plant. The percentage of fat could be more closely monitored at the packing plant level than at the supermarket. The packing plants process it in HUGE volumes, in HUGE grinders. That's how you can end up with the meat from so many cattle in one patty in the end.
Typically, you'd have an assembly line of meatcutters processing the meat from many cattle into smaller cuts to ship to market and along that process, all the trimmings go into large bins. Get a bunch of those bins of trimmings and off to the grinder they go. 100's of pounds at a time into the hopper. It's ground once and put into a process that's analagous to your kitchen mixer, but much larger. Great big paddles mix the meat and then it goes into those tubes and off to market. Well, it doesn't take but a small amount of bacteria along that process and there you have it. One large amount of ground beef with the potential to make lots of people ill, if not cooked properly.

The meat industry also bring thousands of head of cattle into the country across the boarder from Mexico daily for processing. I won't even go into that on this post, but video clips I've seen of how those animals are treated and processed was disturbing even to me and I love to eat meat! Any more, I try to buy my beef from smaller markets like New Seasons, where the beef is more locally raised and processed. It costs more, but it's better beef.

[jet]

Skirmmy

That is what I guess I was trying to say with my post.

I have actually seen once ground beef from the big processing plants in my earlier days that contained portions of material that resembled parts other than skeletial muscle meat. Once the once ground hit the local retailer grinder it all gets mixed in in the grind.

I also spent several years on the blocks. It may be diferent now.


Jet~~~

[GutshotApe]

On the way down I-5 this afternoon I stopped at the Burgerville restaurant at the Tigard exit. The place was packed! About 6 or 7 cars lined up for the drive-thru window, only two empty slots in the parking lot, and people lined up inside at the order counter...almost every seat in the place was taken.

Apparently the hamburger-eating public isn't too worried about MadCow disease...yet.

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

skrimmy, excellent post.

[1pump]

Yeah, I was wondering how you could just "remove" a spinal cord without any residual material being left behind. I know how hard it is just to get the bones out of a fish, let alone a big ol' fat steer. Especially if you have to work quickly, and you're tired from doing it all day.
I've learned more about meat packing in the last couple days than I have in my whole life to this point.

[FishinMission]

Well..Here's what I don't understand. The media reports the disease is only present in "Nerve" tissue.

Why would anyone think "nerve" tissue ends at the tip of the spinal cord??

Aren't there "nerves" throughout the animal??

Just wondering...

Mark

[Tilla]

I dunno UG, I spent a few moments in a guard shack reading memos at a beef processor about 8 years ago. Quite a bit of instruction to truckers about their responsibility getting them downer/lame (definition?) cows up the chute any way they could. (also some discussion about cattle getting loose in the surrounding neighborhood)
Maybe things have changed.

[kayakfisher]

My sources say that the prion, the infective particle in mad cow disease, has not been found in peripheral nerves or pure meat, and that attempts to infect other animals by feeding peripheral nerve tissue, blood, or milk from infected animals has not succeeded. Bone marrow may have prions in it sometimes, but testing bone marrow is not sensitive enough, but bone meal is not safe to ingest. Ground beef is sometimes contaminated with some neural tisse apparrently, and is a higher risk product. Also higher risk products are processed foods, such as suasage, hot dogs, canned soup products, etc....No one should eat anything from an animal known to be infected, but at least there is good reason to believe that the milk from an infected animal is not a problem, in case it slips through the system. That info of course is important, because one cow infected could cause problems with many many people if the milk could pass the disease, so it is good to know that milk has so far been shown to not pass the disease.

I have not read this material myself, but my source is a university professor at a renowned veterinary college...who I spoke with last eve.

The big question in my mind at this time, is that way did the FDA and the dept of agriculture not chase down and eliminate all the cattle that were shipped into the USA from Canada after the BSE was found in Canada? It would seem that since the disease has about a four year incubation perions before the animal gets ill that any animals that came into the usa from canada need to be found and eliminated...there is not good way to test a live animal for BSE at this time...so elimination of all possible infected animals seems the only way to get rid of it.

I also found out that my prior suggestion that all slaughtered animals in England are being test for BSA is incorrect...testing is base on criteria that they have determined "make sense" since the testing is rather expensive and not all that easy. Hopefully there will at some time in the future be an easier and less expensive way to test for this disease in either live or dead animals.

[elkaholic]

Good info guys,

Kayakfisher, it is a good suggestion to trace all canadian imports for the last 10 years and eliminate them but may be unrealistic in the real world as there have been millions. 70,000 dairy cattle in 2001 alone, one of which was this infected one. We did search out all britain imports when they broke with the disease and killed and tested them, I think it was less than 1000 head. Be assured that they will start with the birth herd and work toward all contacts and then work on the millions issue.

You are also right that britain doesn't test all, I think the threshold is every animal over 30 months in age. And all animal with nervous system problems or downers of any age. I think they also cannot sell any meat with the bone still in it, like T bone steaks. Japan is testing every animal slaughtered.

Cheers, and eat beef. US beef.

[kayakfisher]

In theory there is no known reason we cannot get rid of this disease, since it is a fairly difficult disease to transmit, we think. The kicker for now is that it is hard to test for, and has a very long incubation period, so a very healthy appearing animal may indeed have it. Finding and eliminating 10,000 or even ten times that many cows is not really unrealistic...it could be done, and the price of missing only one affected individual is a very big deal...both economically and in human terms.

Still, it is very hard to be sure that every feeder is behaving...so it will take a constant vigilance, and in time maybe it will be possible to check every head that is slaughtered, before the slaughtering process. This may in the long be less expensive than this current problem, which was a little unexpected I think.

It is also not entirely clear where this disease originated...how did the first cow really get it? And the idea of a prion being the infective particle is somewhat of a science fiction story. If this story were made up in a movie or book twenty years ago, we all would have laughed at it as being the dream of someone who knows nothing about the real world of disease, but needed an original plot for the movie. This is indeed an original plot...

Everyone have a safe and pleasant New Years...

M.

[bllelk]

I guess the upside with this is a lot of us have learned a lot more about the beef industry and where our food comes from. Thanks to all of you who have done so much research.
The downside is of course, the livestock producers that do care about the quality of their herd and the animals they sell are going to see their prices drop again. I don't know how these guys stay in business. I ran a small herd for a few years and when the anti's and the BLM decided we either had to fence their land seperate from ours or cut the herd by a third, my third went. Selling those cows and another friends who ran cows with us as well, put our herd manager out of a job. He had to sell his home. He sold it to a some weekend ATV'ers.
Now another family is gone from that small town. There won't be the Spring branding at his place when neighbors help neighbors nor will there be one in the Fall. We won't be taking friends from town on the drive when we push the cows up to summer range and some teenagers that went along will miss out as well.
The impact of this and other forces on our cattle industry is a lot wider than most people understand.
Unfortunately the good guys have to suffer with the bad.

[fishing is life]

One thing someone mentioned to me is the Brits eat so much more headcheese than us. That could be why they have more cases of JCD than us. They did use more meat meal for feed than we have too which could be another big reason.

[FEAR NO FISH!]

Rather than waste all that meat, can it be irradiated? Would that kill the disease?

[Woody]

Prions are the infectious agent agent responsible for Mad Cow, Scrapie, Cronic Wasting, and CJD. Prions are like something out of science fiction. They are not a virus, bacteria, fungus or yeast. They have no DNA or RNA. Prions are really just a protein and therefore can not be "killed".

Check out this link Prions

[fishing is life]

you'll eat anything FNF.

[James in Idaho]

There's been what, around 100 cases of CJD?? 100 out of somewhere around 6 billion folks are pretty small numbers. You are far more likely to die from shark bite or lighting. Over hyped, animal rightest propaganda. Same with CWD in the deer herds. Media hyped FEAR mongering. IMHO of course.

That said, if you are worried about the beef in your freezer, if you'll ship it to me I'll be sure to dispose of it properly.

[Woody]

Jokester, from what I've read, the only way an animal can get infected with the prion is to ingest the infected parts from another animal, or possibly from mother to offsping.

In the past, feed manufacturers used to boost the protein content of their feeds by adding protein that was derived from other animals. Almost always, the source of these proteins was a rendering plant. In other words, dead animals. Since 1997 the US and Canada have prohibited the used of animal based protein in feed for food animals.

It takes at least 5 years for a cow to show any symptoms of mad cow. The animal in question was born in Canada before the ban. That is how it became infected.

Now, beef steers are young animals, usually between 18 and 30 months. The food fed to these animals doesn't contain animal protein. So they are safe. They are however, fed antibiotics to keep them healthy in the crowded feed lots.

Home grown beef is a healthy alternative in more ways than one. They are grass or hay fed and finished with grain. If it's from an organic grower it won't have any antibiotics or hormones. It better for the environment, too. Feedlots and dairys are huge sources of pollution into the local waterways. If it matters, I think my pigs, cows, and chickens are happier, too. They have the best life I can give them. Plenty of room to roam, fresh food and clean water, and shelter from the weather.

To answer your question, homegrown beef would be healthier than store bought, but not because of mad cow. Just better quality food from healthy happy critters.

[ 12-29-2003, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: Woody ]

[kayakfisher]

As far as I can determine from my informed university sources...BSE is not passed to calves by milk, nor is it transmitted intrauterine (transplacentally) to the calves.

M.

[kayakfisher]

Right on Woody...there are a lot of reasons to eat home grown beef, chicken, pork, lamb, eggs..etc. In the big picture it would likely be safer for us also...

This is in my opinion a more humane way to raise animals for consumption, but I must admit, in the big picture it is also more expensive, and it would be hard to get enough grown to feed those of us who don't have the land to do it.

M

[FEAR NO FISH!]

I even ate your cooking. At least you told me it was beef. Of course, it could have been K-9!

[jokester]

So what about buying your beef from a privately owned local beef farmer? Would that be more safe than buying from the local supermarkets or is that how they get their beef also? I was under the impression that a lot of the beef in supermarkets is shipped in from other states or countries. Is this true, or have I been mislead all along?

-jokester