info

"The General Accounting Office report concludes: "BSE may be silently
incubating somewhere in the United States. If that is the case, then
FDA's failure to enforce the feed ban may already have placed
U.S. herds and, in turn, the human food supply at risk"

"The U.S. and Canada have basically the same safeguards in place, with
the same loopholes and the same inadequate surveillance. If Canada has
mad cow disease, then it stands to reason that the United States does
as well." -Michael Greger, M.D.

"THE RETURN OF MAD COW -- AMERICAN BEEF SUPPLY AT RISK"
By MICHAEL GREGER, MD

[This is a cut-and-paste shortened summary; please see URL at bottom
for full article with 70+ footnotes inlucded]

The Canadian Agriculture Minister announced this week that a cow in
Canada has tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy,
better known as mad cow disease. The United States immediately imposed
a ban on Canadian beef and cattle imports, but the American beef
supply may have already been placed at risk.


The explosive spread of mad cow disease in Europe has been blamed on
the cannibalistic practice of feeding slaughterhouse waste to
livestock.[10] Both Canada[11] and the United States[12] banned the
feeding of the muscles and bones of most animals to cows and sheep
back in 1997, but unlike Europe left gaping loopholes in the law. For
example, blood is currently exempted from the Canadian[13] and the
U.S.[14] feed bans. You can still feed calves cow's blood collected at
the slaughterhouse.

The reason why the American Red Cross continues to restrict blood
donations from those who lived in Europe[19] is because of mounting
evidence that indeed blood may be infectious.[20] In fact the mad cow
outbreak in Japan has been tentatively tied to milk replacer.[21] Yet
cow blood is still allowed to be fed to livestock in this country.

Mad cow disease is thought to caused not by a virus, fungus or
bacteria, but by a prion, or infectious protein. One reason prions are
so concerning is that, unlike conventional pathogens, prions are not
adequately destroyed by cooking, canning, or freezing.[31,32] Usable
doses of UV or ionizing radiation, stomach acid, and digestive enzymes
are all ineffective in destroying their infectivity.[33, 34]

Europe has forbidden the feeding of all slaughterhouse waste to
livestock. The United States and Canada should do the same, according
to William Leiss, President of the prestigious Royal Society of
Canada.[41] The American Feed Industry Association calls such a ban a
radical proposition.[42] The American Meat Institute also disagrees

U.S. health officials[44] and the Canadian Agriculture
Minister[45]were quick to emphasize that only a single positive case
was found. But Canada has been testing less than 0.01 percent of their
cattle population for mad cow disease.[46] Canada now joins the ranks
of other countries like Germany, France, Belgium and Italy that all
confidently pronounced that they, too, were "free" of mad cow disease,
until tests showed otherwise.[47] Will the United States be next?

Last year, the United States tested a little under 20,000 cattle for
mad cow disease.[49] That's less than Europe tests every day.[50]
"This demonstrates that no cattle-producing country can think it's
safe," Steve Bjerklie of Meat Processing magazine told USA Today in
response to the Canadian discovery. "It really is a clarion call to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture to step up surveillance in this
country."[51]
[ http://www.testcowsnow.com/]

"First," the news release explains, "the Canadian case proves that the
systems designed to protect consumers do work. The animal in question
did not enter the food supply." Based on the cir***stances, though, it
seems more like random chance that the cow got tested at all.[62] And
had the animal instead entered a U.S. slaughterhouse, chances that it
would have been tested seem even more remote. [the release said]
"Animals with any signs of neurological disorder are not permitted to
enter the human food chain and are tested for BSE."[63] Yet the
Canadian cow wasn't necessarily displaying neurological symptoms. The
Alberta Agriculture Minister Shirley McClellan explained the 14 week
testing delay by noting that the cow didn't appear to have BSE when it
was condemned; it was underweight and thought to have pneumonia.[64]
The provincial laboratory evidently just tested the animal as part of
their routine 1 in 10,000 surveillance for mad cow disease.[65]

Fortuitously, though, the cow in Canada was deemed unfit for human
consumption.[66] There's reason to believe that if the cow had entered
a U.S. slaughterhouse, not only might it not have been tested, it may
have ended up on America's dinner plate. According to an investigation
of USDA slaughterhouse records, almost three quarters of cattle that
were even too sick to stand were passed as fit for human consumption,
including those who appeared sick with pneumonia.[67]

Many edible products, such as beef stock, beef extract, and beef
flavoring, are frequently made by boiling the skeletal remains
(including the vertebral column) of the carcass..."[69] According to
the consumer advocacy organization Center for Science in the Public
Interest, spinal cord contamination may also be found in U.S. hot
dogs, hamburgers, pizza toppings, and taco fillings.[70] In fact, a
2002 USDA survey showed that approximately 35 percent of high risk
meat products tested positive for CNS and CNS-associated tissues.[71]

The General Accounting Office report concludes: "BSE may be silently

incubating somewhere in the United States. If that is the case, then
FDA 's failure to enforce the feed ban may already have placed
U.S. herds and, in turn, the human food supply at risk. FDA has no
clear enforcement strategy for dealing with firms that do not obey the
feed ban... Moreover, FDA has been using inaccurate, incomplete, and
unreliable data to track and oversee feed ban compliance."[79]

The U.S. and Canada have basically the same safeguards in place, with
the same loopholes and the same inadequate surveillance. If Canada has
mad cow disease, then it stands to reason that the United States does
as well. Either way, whether from the millions of cattle, or the
billions of pounds of beef we imported from Canada previous to
yesterday's ban, American beef consumers have been placed at risk

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.counterpunch.org/greger05232003.html

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STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?

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http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/IraqCrisis.htm
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Daily Online 2 hour radio show reporting: http://www.DemocracyNow.org

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