MAd Cow

[Peter_Puget]

MAd Cow

[catbirdseat]

I am glad that I stopped eating red meat over 20 years ago. At last count 134 Britons have died from Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Now they are dying in Canada. The United States is next.

[murraysovereign]

"This incident is not terrorist-related," Veneman said Tuesday. "I cannot stress this point strongly enough."

 

Oh, for Christ's sake

[JayB]

Looks like the Canadian Guy picked up the disease in Britain though. I have heard rumors of three guys in Wisconsin coming down with vCJD after eating meat from a deer or elk sick with Chronic Wasting Disease - the spongiform encephalopathy unique to those animals and prevalent in the central Rockies.

[catbirdseat]

This is your brain.

This is your brain on beef.

Any questions?

[vegetablebelay]

Catturd, no wonder you're such a pussy.

[murraysovereign]

This is your brain.

 

Your kidding - our brains are made of Plasticine? God, that explains sooo many things...

[vegetablebelay]

Just yours up in Canada. God, that explains sooo many things...

[lummox]

i like to eat dead cow.

[Dan_Harris]

"This incident is not terrorist-related," Veneman said Tuesday. "I cannot stress this point strongly enough."

 

Oh, for Christ's sake

Hey, hey, hey. ehmmic and Ann Veneman graduated from the same high school. Maybe that's why Michelle left town and headed north. Uh, wait a minute, I teach at that school. Agggghhhhh!

[chelle]

That would have been Pam Veneman. Don't know any Anne's. And what are you implying????

[Dan_Harris]

ehmmic: Implying nothing! An attempt at humor and a poor job at it I now realize. Anne did graduate from your alma mater about 20 years before you did.

 

murray: I can understand Veneman's comment. I'm sure there are many out there who would believe terrorists to be the cause of anything bad happening. Didn't Al-Queda cause the recent earthquake down here?

Edited December 24, 2003 by Dan_Harris

[Dru]

Lawmakers are keenly aware that a case of mad cow disease in Canada last May -- which officials described as a single, isolated incident -- still had devastating economic consequences.

 

"If it's anything like what happened in Canada, it will be bad. The problem won't be that people will stop eating meat in the United States; the problem is the exports will be shut down like we did with Canada," said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

 

 

OH MY GOD PEOPLE MIGHT DO TO US WHAT WE DID TO CANADA!!!!!! NOOOO ANYTHING BUT THAT

[murraysovereign]

Lawmakers are keenly aware that a case of mad cow disease in Canada last May -- which officials described as a single, isolated incident -- still had devastating economic consequences.

 

"If it's anything like what happened in Canada, it will be bad. The problem won't be that people will stop eating meat in the United States; the problem is the exports will be shut down like we did with Canada," said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

 

 

OH MY GOD PEOPLE MIGHT DO TO US WHAT WE DID TO CANADA!!!!!! NOOOO ANYTHING BUT THAT

 

It's already starting.

 

This sucks - the Alberta eceonomy has taken a serious shit-kicking because of a single cow. The bans on Canadian beef are still largely in place 7 months later, even though no further cases have come to light. This will not be a very Merry Christmas, or a very Happy New Year, for a lot of U.S. cattlemen.

[JayB]

Lawmakers are keenly aware that a case of mad cow disease in Canada last May -- which officials described as a single, isolated incident -- still had devastating economic consequences.

 

"If it's anything like what happened in Canada, it will be bad. The problem won't be that people will stop eating meat in the United States; the problem is the exports will be shut down like we did with Canada," said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

 

 

OH MY GOD PEOPLE MIGHT DO TO US WHAT WE DID TO CANADA!!!!!! NOOOO ANYTHING BUT THAT

 

Yeah - like Canadians and Canadian Cattlemen would accept imports of beef from countries with confirmed cases of BSE when their beef/cows had no known cases of the disease.

[scrambler]

"This incident is not terrorist-related," Veneman said Tuesday. "I cannot stress this point strongly enough."

 

Oh, for Christ's sake

 

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton wrote a book in 1997 titled Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could It Happen Here? (available now as a pdf file here ).

 

Important reading...

 

Also, Jeremy Rifkin has written some insightful and thought provoking words in Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture. For instance, "...cattle aren't destructive but the way in which they are reared and the scale to which they are reared is destructive."

 

With regard to the potential for affecting our food supply, he relates this historical tidbit: "These men [the buffalo hunters] have done . . . more to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular army has done in the last thirty years. They are destroying the Indians' commissary; and it is a well-known fact that an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage. Send them powder and lead if you will; but for the sake of lasting peace let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated."

[Dru]

the great plains supported a greater number of buffalo than the current number of cattle now present in the same states and provinces.

 

source: don't be lazy, you can google it too!

[scrambler]

the great plains supported a greater number of buffalo than the current number of cattle now present in the same states and provinces.

 

source: don't be lazy, you can google it too!

 

Yeah, free range animals, leaner and promotes growth of vegetation. Wouldn't work today on the same scale as buffalo had in the pre-settler days with our land crisscrossed with roads, fences, etc.

 

I like beef but the current system of raising beef and slaughtering fosters the spread of mad cow disease.

Maybe organic beef?

[murraysovereign]

I like beef but the current system of raising beef and slaughtering fosters the spread of mad cow disease.

Maybe organic beef?

 

Still doesn't guarantee anything. The simple fact is that BSE can, and does, occur naturally, spontaneously, and completely randomly. It doesn't matter how you raise the animals, or how you slaughter them, or what you feed them - sooner or later you're going to get one with BSE. This is what happened in northern Alberta last spring, and it's the most likely cause of the Washington case. It's true that feeding animal protein back to livestock in enriched feeds greatly increases the chances of a large-scale outbreak such as we saw in Great Britain - I would say it makes it all but inevitable - but eliminating such practices does not eliminate the possibility of a spontaneous occurrence. Organic, free-range cows sooner or later will come down with organic, free-range BSE.

[Dru]

despite deliberate attempts to induce it under laboratory conditions - including direct injection with BSE cow brain extracts - pigs do not develop prion diseases.

[murraysovereign]

So lawyers are immune? Damn. This just keeps getting worse.

[scrambler]

We're doomed!!

 

Seriously though, I'm reading from the original story that there is no threat to the food supply so domestic consumption is not fatally threatened rather the impact will be felt economically in trade.

 

The crux of the problem is the long incubation period between initial infection and subsequent deterioration. So, an infected animal that does not exhibit visible symptoms is the host carrier. Why isn't there some sort of early warning test to determine the presence of the virus? Will implementing this be too costly in itself, for example, price beef beyond the reach of ordinary consumers?

[scrambler]

despite deliberate attempts to induce it under laboratory conditions - including direct injection with BSE cow brain extracts - pigs do not develop prion diseases.

 

Well yeah, you're talking about two different biological entities, different suborders.

 

Suborder Ruminantia (ruminants - having a 3- or 4-part stomach)

Family Bovidae - antelope, cattle, goats, sheep

 

Suborder Suiformes

Family Suidae - swine (pigs, hogs)

 

 

It's like that example a number of years ago where a baboon heart was implanted into a person. The person's immune system rejected the foreign transplant soon thereafter. Would have made more sense to use a more closely related animal such as a chimpanzee to see a longer span of time before tissue rejection as stated by Steven Jay Gould in Natural History mag.

 

Anyway, my point is, shouldn't you inject the cow BSE into cows rather than pigs?

[catbirdseat]

Prion disease is a complex subject that I have followed closely since I happened upon some of Stanley Prusner's articles back in the mid '80's. It is not caused by viruses as prions do not contain DNA. They are a conformationally altered variant of a naturally occurring brain protein. No one knows what the function of this protein is, but it is associated with cell membranes of neurons. When prion protein comes into contact with native protein, it acts as a "scaffold" or template, if you will, to convert the normal protein to the altered state which is characterized by beta-pleated sheets. The prion proteins form self-associating aggregates which eventually grow large enough to form granules that can be seen in elecctron micrographs. All this eventually leads to death of neurons and "spongiform" lesions in the brain.

 

The protein does not circulate in the blood stream in large concentrations, so therefore it is difficult to detect without taking a brain biopsy. There are tests being developed that can detect the prion before visible symptoms develop.

 

The protein is tremendously stable and can survive proteases and autoclaving. In fact, infectious prion material was recovered from garden soil outside a lab where it had been poured three years before! The only way to kill it is to incinerate it.

 

Since the normal prion protein of pigs is different from that of cows and humans, there is what is termed a "species barrier". Apparently, this barrier is high for cow to pig transmission. There is a species barrier between cows and humans too, but apparently there is a subset of individuals who possess certain protein genotypes that are more susceptible to transformation. In other words, not everyone who eats contaminated beef can get the disease called Variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob.

 

When prion diseases were traced to recycled animal parts, it seemed clear that this practice should be stopped immediately. However, what actually happened was the feed producers asked the question, "do all animal parts harbor the prion or just some parts?". The scientists answered that "we think it is found mostly in nervous system tissue and bone." So what they did was to exclude bone, brain and spinal cord from the feed, but continued to use blood, and meat, etc. All they did was reduce the chance of infecting an animal with their feed, not eliminate it. Now comes the time of reckoning.

[Dru]

well if humans can get cow BSE and develop Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease??????

 

the point is - giving pigs large doses of prions does not induce prion diseases in them.

 

prions are not viruses. they are reshaped proteins. standard methods for sterilizing material (bleach, high heat) do not work to remove prions. important point. also your immune system does not work against prions.

 

if only we could fiond out how pigs do it immunity wise.

 

ion the meantime: BACON TASTES GOOD. PORK CHOPS TASTE GOOD. SEWER RAT MIGHT TASTE LIKE PUMPKIN PIE....