Mad Cow Disease in Washington

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3795664/

If this has the same impact as it had in Canada a few months back, the U.S. beef industry is in trouble.

 

It's some kind of Bush Camp conspiracy, I've no doubt.

Also, I've not eaten steak in a while. Mostly chicken and eggs (as far as protein goes).

Safe.

 

From what I read, they have quarantined the area. Most likely, all the cattle will be destroyed and their remains burned.

The disease you get from "Mad Cow" is absolutely horrific!

The disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and also Kuru, can remain dormant in your body anywhere from days to decades. When it becomes active, it causes your brain tissue to crystalize. Victims loose their memory, their balance, their ability to think and eventually end up psychotic. Victims in many African countries are simply mercy-killed at this point.

 

Unless you know and trust the source of that chicken, don't be too sure.

 

Suuuuuure, that would make perfect sense.

 

The entire mad cow panic is silly, it has run around the world a couple of times. Most of the times they have suspected cases of mad cow it turns out to be nothing. Then there is also the fact that it is damn hard to catch the afflication. Even in Britain where Mad Cow really was rampant for a while I wonder if more than a couple of hundred people got the disease. You need to eat part of the animals brain or spinal tissue I think and even then it is just a small risk that you catch it.

But hey! We live in an age where panic sells newspapers and gets viewers so that is what the media feeds us.

 

I don't think I'd consider the mad cow 'panic' silly. Although there's always the threat that the meat would enter the human food supply, the damage the disease causes to cattle herds is the main reason that countries block suspect imports. That's the number one reason that Japan has such strict import rules now.

The Canadian beef industry is still trying to recover from the incident in May. That infected animal was destroyed quickly and didn't enter the food supply. The suspected US animal has parts in 3 different processing plants that are being tracked down. The effect on the US beef industry could very easily be devastating.

 

I work for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and I can tell you that the animal tissue that is really at risk are called "specified risk materials" and consist of the brain, the spinal cord, part of the intestine and some ganglia. These materials never enter the food chain, but can be used to produce animal feed. All other edible cow tissue can still transmit the disease but at very low rates.

Feed containing specified risk materials are banned in Canada (and most countries I would imagine), but cows that were fed prior to the ban might still be infected. As someone stated, the disease can remain dormant for years, even in cows. Animals younger than a certain age (I believe it's 4 years old) are supposed to be immune to the disease.

In any case, the health risks for humans are minimal. If there's only one infected cow, that is (as was the case here in Canada). If the disease is widespread in US cattle, then look out below!

There are tons of information about BSE (mad cow disease) at www.inspection.gc.ca

 

Not Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, *variant* Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. This one tends to pick off younger people (ie - not 60+). And as Blackhawk says, the dormancy period for variant CJD allows for infection to go unnoticed for years. Watch what you're feeding those cows.

 

Well, I live in Washington and recently bought some ground beef. While the risk is low, I have no intention of eating it.

 

This is likely caused by cannibalism- it seems that this disease crops up everywhere (and in humans as well) that cannibalism is practiced, one of those curious things but I'm pretty certain that the correllation is there.

So those cheap farmers have to stop feeding their cows from the rendering plants the inhumane bastards.

 

it was pretty rampant back in Britain a while ago, didn't it start from farmers feeding cows sheep or something likle that

 

The hit to the US beef industry has been minimal. Even other countries banning our beef will have almost no impact on the industry (exports of beef are such a tiny percentage). There has been a slight hit that farmers have felt, mainly only in beef prices.

141 people, last I checked.

Correct. Both of those have been banned for consumption by either people or animals in the United States for almost 2 decades.

Spellbound, not only is the risk low, it's non-existant. Especially if you bought that beef more than a day or so ago. The FDA has kept such a watchful eye on the beef industry (which also polices itself) that you have a better chance of dying in a housefire caused by cooking the food than by catching any disease from the meat.

Chicken is right now much more dangerous than beef.

 

Then again,

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001823293_madcow26.html

 

When all else fails, BLAME CANADA!

 

Sojurner, I fail to see how that article makes any real point. Regardless, all of my information comes out of the Times as well (not Seattle, but still) so I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on bovine pathology.

Eating the meat itself cannot spread the disease, and the only parts of the cow that carry the disease have been banned from processing for any creature's consumption for years.

 

All right then, maybe this will spell it out better, that the meat-packing industry is not as safe as it once was:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/national/28COW.html?pagewanted=1

The so-called downer animals are the most prone to disease, and not just of the BSE type. Fast food industry is right to take precautions - Jack-in-the-Box, anyone?

What was that about the meat from sick cows being safe again?

 

Here's an interesting take on the subject from a professional chef:

Alton Brown