![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Think About It
Jan. 12th, 2004 07:41 pmMad Cow Disease Hits the United States
From PETA webpage
If you eat meat, you already have to worry about salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease,strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer, as well as your weight. Now, add mad cow, chicken, fish, pig, and turkey disease to the list--that's right, if there's a brain, it could have a spongy brain (spongiform encephalopathy); we've already identified mad cow disease variants in humans, sheep, mink, cows, elk, deer, and cats.
You only have to worry about bacteria in your food if you don’t cook it properly. Keep in mind that the most recent E. coli scare involved green onions, and salmonella has been found in cantaloupe. Meat is hardly the sole source of bacteria in food.
The spongiform encephalopathies which have been diagnosed in other species are not the same as the “mad cow disease” encephalopathy. They have never been shown to transmit between species, or to be related to health problems in humans. There are actually several similar human diseases which were known long before “mad cow disease” arose. As for chickens, fish, pigs, and turkeys, there is no evidence of any such diseases in these species.
Late in the day on December 23, the U.S. government announced that a dairy cow in Washington state was infected with mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Government officials announced that they have a plan, but it seems to be a public relations plan, not a plan to protect the public health. Newspapers report that meat from the cow, who was killed December 9, traveled through three processing plants before the problem was discovered 13 days later.
The government has instituted several changes to the system for detection of BSE in cattle. Remember that the picture which has recently been shown so prominently on the news is a picture from England. The Washington cow was not displaying any neurologic behaviors. She was sent to slaughter due to a calving injury, and there was no reason to suspect that she was sick, but she was tested and diagnosed anyway. The system already in place worked, and caught the illness.
What Is Mad Cow Disease?
Spongy brains, whether in humans, cows, or other animals, are caused by malformed proteins called prions. Researchers have traced recent outbreaks of the bovine version of the disease to farmers’ cost-cutting practice of mixing bits of dead sheep’s neural tissue into the feed of cows, who are naturally herbivorous. If cows eat the brains of other cows who already have BSE or of sheep suffering from a sheep disease called scrapie, the animals can develop mad cow disease. When people eat infected animals, thus far presumed to be cows, they could develop the human version of the disease, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD). Millions of cattle suspected of being infected with BSE in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, and other countries have been incinerated, and various safeguards (few of which have been adopted in the U.S.) have been instituted.
Researchers originally suspected that BSE might have arisen as a result of feeding rendered sheep carcasses as protein supplements to high-producing cattle. This link has never been proven, and in fact many experimental attempts to transfer scrapie (the sheep spongiform encephalopathy) to cattle have failed. Currently, no one is certain why BSE arose, but most researchers believe it was initiated by a spontaneous case in a single cow which entered the food chain. For people to become infected, they must eat the brain tissue of the infected cow. The protein is not stored in the muscle tissue. Most meat products are not considered “at risk” for transmitting the prion—only those containing brain tissues, some sausage products, for example.
No matter what species it strikes, spongiform encephalopathy is always fatal. There is no treatment. The disease eats holes in the brain. In humans, it initially causes memory loss and erratic behavior, and over a period of months, its victims gradually lose all ability to care for themselves or communicate, and eventually, they die. So far, more than 120 people in Europe have died from nvCJD.
The disease does not “eat” anything. It causes an accumulation of protein in the neurons, eventually killing individual cells. With the passing of sufficient time, enough cells die to result in impairment of function.
Doesn’t the government protect the meat supply?
Because the infected cow was raised for dairy production, she had lived long enough to show symptoms of the disease. Most cows are killed before they turn 2 years old, chickens at 6 to 7 weeks, and pigs and turkeys before they’re 6 months old, long before they could become symptomatic; no one would know whether they were infected with spongy brain disease, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is doing nothing at all to try to find out. In fact, the USDA admits that it only tested about 20,000 cows (and no other animals) for BSE last year—a statistically insignificant percentage of the approximately 40 million cows and 10 billion other animals slaughtered annually.
Again, the Washington cow was NOT exhibiting signs of the disease. She was a “downer” due to a calving injury, not neurological problems. Most BEEF cows are slaughtered by 2 years of age, when they reach full weight. Most dairy cows live much longer lives, so the age of this cow was in no way unusual. Until recently, slaughter regulations included a random sampling of non-symptomatic cattle be tested for BSE. An even higher proportion of “downer” cattle were tested, which is how this cow was diagnosed. There were 20,566 animals tested in the US last year. These procedures are currently being altered to be even more protective of the public. For example, a faster test has been developed and is now being used to get results much quicker (2 days instead of 2 weeks). For a summary of the changes, see the medline webpage: www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_15375.html
Slaughter houses do not process cattle showing neurologic signs for human consumption. Addionally, no “downer” cattle will be allowed to be processed for human consumption no matter what the cause of the cow’s inability to walk (this includes broken bones, which are in no way contagious).
The dangerous practice of feeding sheep and even cows to other cows was not banned in the U.S. and Canada until 1997, and the U.S. government said that as recently as 2001, there was widespread violation of the feeding regulation. It is still legal to feed cow’s blood to cows, to feed sheep and cows to pigs and chickens, and to feed pigs and chickens to one another and to cows, even though these practices have been banned in Europe. In fact, European countries have instituted an array of safety precautions, which have not yet been adopted in the U.S., to try to protect their populations from spongy brain diseases.
As mentioned before, there has been no evidence or suspicion that poultry or pigs have their own spongiform encephalopathies, nor is there evidence that any encephalopathy other than BSE is transmissible between species. Prions are not transmitted in blood or muscle; they are only found in brain and spinal tissue.
The primary reason that animals are fed back to other animals is as an efficient and inexpensive protein source. Animals are not fed whole or raw, as PETA seems to be implying here; they are rendered and mixed with other feeds—grains and forages for the most part. And PETA fails to mention that both chickens and pigs are quite willing to eat meat in addition to grain. Both species are naturally omnivorous.
Other forms of spongy brain diseases have been found in North America. In May, an 8-year-old cow on a dairy farm in Alberta, Canada, was found to have BSE. Two years ago, 200 sheep raised for dairy on a Vermont farm were killed on suspicion that they were infected with their species’ equivalent of mad cow disease. Chronic wasting disease, a similar condition, is widespread in deer and elk in Western Canada and the U.S. and is suspected of infecting hunters who may have eaten meat from sick animals.
The sheep equivalent of BSE has been known for centuries, and never linked with problems in humans. Sheep diagnosed with Scrapie are generally euthanized because there is no treatment, not out of fear for the human handlers. I repeat; researchers have not established a link between any encephalopathy other than BSE and human illness. To be safe, it is recommended that hunters not take obviously sick animals, and they not eat the brain tissue of any animal. This advice is not a direct result of chronic wasting disease, however…it has been standard advice for many years, due the increased risk of bacterial contamination from sick animals.
Since spongy brains have been found in cats, dogs, sheep, mink, deer, and elk, as well as in cows and people, you may not be protecting yourself by avoiding beef alone. When there are so many delicious vegetarian alternatives available at virtually every restaurant and grocery store, why gamble?
As discussed above, it’s hardly a gamble to eat meat; the chances of exposure to any disease through properly cooked food is miniscule, and the risk of BSE exposure even smaller than for most.
Can You Protect Yourself?
Yes! The best way to protect yourself and your family is to stop eating animal products and choose a healthy vegan diet. A vegan diet not only protects you from mad cow disease, but is the most effective way to prevent foodborne illness, heart disease, strokes, and many other ailments. Click here for a FREE vegetarian starter kit to help you get started.
A vegan diet is exceedingly hard to adhere to and still meet your nutritional requirements. Meat, dairy, and eggs are important and common sources of necessary protein and minerals. The most effective way to prevent food borne illness is proper hygiene while handling food and sufficient cooking time. The most effective way to prevent heart disease and stroke is weight control through exercise and a balanced diet. Also remember that vegetarian is different than vegan, despite PETA’s interchangeable usage. A vegetarian diet is generally more easily balanced and maintained than a vegan diet. Reducing the amount of meat you eat can be helpful in reducing the fat content of your diet, but so can changing the cooking style (broiled versus fried). Eliminating junk food from your diet is much more helpful in achieving the goal of a healthy diet (and lifestyle) than is eliminating meat.
Some useful related websites are listed (credit should go to them, as I used information from these pages in my posting)
news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/608.html
http://health.allrefer.com/health/balanced-diet-recommendations.html
From PETA webpage
If you eat meat, you already have to worry about salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease,strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer, as well as your weight. Now, add mad cow, chicken, fish, pig, and turkey disease to the list--that's right, if there's a brain, it could have a spongy brain (spongiform encephalopathy); we've already identified mad cow disease variants in humans, sheep, mink, cows, elk, deer, and cats.
You only have to worry about bacteria in your food if you don’t cook it properly. Keep in mind that the most recent E. coli scare involved green onions, and salmonella has been found in cantaloupe. Meat is hardly the sole source of bacteria in food.
The spongiform encephalopathies which have been diagnosed in other species are not the same as the “mad cow disease” encephalopathy. They have never been shown to transmit between species, or to be related to health problems in humans. There are actually several similar human diseases which were known long before “mad cow disease” arose. As for chickens, fish, pigs, and turkeys, there is no evidence of any such diseases in these species.
Late in the day on December 23, the U.S. government announced that a dairy cow in Washington state was infected with mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Government officials announced that they have a plan, but it seems to be a public relations plan, not a plan to protect the public health. Newspapers report that meat from the cow, who was killed December 9, traveled through three processing plants before the problem was discovered 13 days later.
The government has instituted several changes to the system for detection of BSE in cattle. Remember that the picture which has recently been shown so prominently on the news is a picture from England. The Washington cow was not displaying any neurologic behaviors. She was sent to slaughter due to a calving injury, and there was no reason to suspect that she was sick, but she was tested and diagnosed anyway. The system already in place worked, and caught the illness.
What Is Mad Cow Disease?
Spongy brains, whether in humans, cows, or other animals, are caused by malformed proteins called prions. Researchers have traced recent outbreaks of the bovine version of the disease to farmers’ cost-cutting practice of mixing bits of dead sheep’s neural tissue into the feed of cows, who are naturally herbivorous. If cows eat the brains of other cows who already have BSE or of sheep suffering from a sheep disease called scrapie, the animals can develop mad cow disease. When people eat infected animals, thus far presumed to be cows, they could develop the human version of the disease, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD). Millions of cattle suspected of being infected with BSE in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, and other countries have been incinerated, and various safeguards (few of which have been adopted in the U.S.) have been instituted.
Researchers originally suspected that BSE might have arisen as a result of feeding rendered sheep carcasses as protein supplements to high-producing cattle. This link has never been proven, and in fact many experimental attempts to transfer scrapie (the sheep spongiform encephalopathy) to cattle have failed. Currently, no one is certain why BSE arose, but most researchers believe it was initiated by a spontaneous case in a single cow which entered the food chain. For people to become infected, they must eat the brain tissue of the infected cow. The protein is not stored in the muscle tissue. Most meat products are not considered “at risk” for transmitting the prion—only those containing brain tissues, some sausage products, for example.
No matter what species it strikes, spongiform encephalopathy is always fatal. There is no treatment. The disease eats holes in the brain. In humans, it initially causes memory loss and erratic behavior, and over a period of months, its victims gradually lose all ability to care for themselves or communicate, and eventually, they die. So far, more than 120 people in Europe have died from nvCJD.
The disease does not “eat” anything. It causes an accumulation of protein in the neurons, eventually killing individual cells. With the passing of sufficient time, enough cells die to result in impairment of function.
Doesn’t the government protect the meat supply?
Because the infected cow was raised for dairy production, she had lived long enough to show symptoms of the disease. Most cows are killed before they turn 2 years old, chickens at 6 to 7 weeks, and pigs and turkeys before they’re 6 months old, long before they could become symptomatic; no one would know whether they were infected with spongy brain disease, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is doing nothing at all to try to find out. In fact, the USDA admits that it only tested about 20,000 cows (and no other animals) for BSE last year—a statistically insignificant percentage of the approximately 40 million cows and 10 billion other animals slaughtered annually.
Again, the Washington cow was NOT exhibiting signs of the disease. She was a “downer” due to a calving injury, not neurological problems. Most BEEF cows are slaughtered by 2 years of age, when they reach full weight. Most dairy cows live much longer lives, so the age of this cow was in no way unusual. Until recently, slaughter regulations included a random sampling of non-symptomatic cattle be tested for BSE. An even higher proportion of “downer” cattle were tested, which is how this cow was diagnosed. There were 20,566 animals tested in the US last year. These procedures are currently being altered to be even more protective of the public. For example, a faster test has been developed and is now being used to get results much quicker (2 days instead of 2 weeks). For a summary of the changes, see the medline webpage: www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_15375.html
Slaughter houses do not process cattle showing neurologic signs for human consumption. Addionally, no “downer” cattle will be allowed to be processed for human consumption no matter what the cause of the cow’s inability to walk (this includes broken bones, which are in no way contagious).
The dangerous practice of feeding sheep and even cows to other cows was not banned in the U.S. and Canada until 1997, and the U.S. government said that as recently as 2001, there was widespread violation of the feeding regulation. It is still legal to feed cow’s blood to cows, to feed sheep and cows to pigs and chickens, and to feed pigs and chickens to one another and to cows, even though these practices have been banned in Europe. In fact, European countries have instituted an array of safety precautions, which have not yet been adopted in the U.S., to try to protect their populations from spongy brain diseases.
As mentioned before, there has been no evidence or suspicion that poultry or pigs have their own spongiform encephalopathies, nor is there evidence that any encephalopathy other than BSE is transmissible between species. Prions are not transmitted in blood or muscle; they are only found in brain and spinal tissue.
The primary reason that animals are fed back to other animals is as an efficient and inexpensive protein source. Animals are not fed whole or raw, as PETA seems to be implying here; they are rendered and mixed with other feeds—grains and forages for the most part. And PETA fails to mention that both chickens and pigs are quite willing to eat meat in addition to grain. Both species are naturally omnivorous.
Other forms of spongy brain diseases have been found in North America. In May, an 8-year-old cow on a dairy farm in Alberta, Canada, was found to have BSE. Two years ago, 200 sheep raised for dairy on a Vermont farm were killed on suspicion that they were infected with their species’ equivalent of mad cow disease. Chronic wasting disease, a similar condition, is widespread in deer and elk in Western Canada and the U.S. and is suspected of infecting hunters who may have eaten meat from sick animals.
The sheep equivalent of BSE has been known for centuries, and never linked with problems in humans. Sheep diagnosed with Scrapie are generally euthanized because there is no treatment, not out of fear for the human handlers. I repeat; researchers have not established a link between any encephalopathy other than BSE and human illness. To be safe, it is recommended that hunters not take obviously sick animals, and they not eat the brain tissue of any animal. This advice is not a direct result of chronic wasting disease, however…it has been standard advice for many years, due the increased risk of bacterial contamination from sick animals.
Since spongy brains have been found in cats, dogs, sheep, mink, deer, and elk, as well as in cows and people, you may not be protecting yourself by avoiding beef alone. When there are so many delicious vegetarian alternatives available at virtually every restaurant and grocery store, why gamble?
As discussed above, it’s hardly a gamble to eat meat; the chances of exposure to any disease through properly cooked food is miniscule, and the risk of BSE exposure even smaller than for most.
Can You Protect Yourself?
Yes! The best way to protect yourself and your family is to stop eating animal products and choose a healthy vegan diet. A vegan diet not only protects you from mad cow disease, but is the most effective way to prevent foodborne illness, heart disease, strokes, and many other ailments. Click here for a FREE vegetarian starter kit to help you get started.
A vegan diet is exceedingly hard to adhere to and still meet your nutritional requirements. Meat, dairy, and eggs are important and common sources of necessary protein and minerals. The most effective way to prevent food borne illness is proper hygiene while handling food and sufficient cooking time. The most effective way to prevent heart disease and stroke is weight control through exercise and a balanced diet. Also remember that vegetarian is different than vegan, despite PETA’s interchangeable usage. A vegetarian diet is generally more easily balanced and maintained than a vegan diet. Reducing the amount of meat you eat can be helpful in reducing the fat content of your diet, but so can changing the cooking style (broiled versus fried). Eliminating junk food from your diet is much more helpful in achieving the goal of a healthy diet (and lifestyle) than is eliminating meat.
Some useful related websites are listed (credit should go to them, as I used information from these pages in my posting)
news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/608.html
http://health.allrefer.com/health/balanced-diet-recommendations.html
