The Cellar - What's mildly irritating you today?

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Just got back from a 4 and a half hour exam.. started it at 6pm. My senior comprehensive final for history majors. All essay, about ten pages typed single spaced (usual for college classes these days is double), covered everything under the frickin sun, no outside resources just drawing off everything you've learned, or were supposed to have learned, over the past 4 years. My eyes are all defocused from staring at the screen for so long. And now, it's sleep time.

That sound freaking brutal. I have done them, mind you not written, but I am glad those days are long gone. Glad it is over for you. Get a cold beer or a nice glass of wine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 535210)

What's the testing rate? How many cows go into the food supply for each cow that is tested?

40,000? That's the number I saw, which was current as of 2004.

That's many times more than the average number of people a drug must be tested on before being approved by the FDA.

In 2001, the world population was estimated at 6.1 billion and the number of cows was estimated at 1.5 billion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana (Post 535247)

I am a beef producer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana (Post 535280)

Neither BSE among cattle, nor the new human variant of CJD, have been found in the United States.

This is simply false. You yourself have stated that there were cases of BSE infected cows in the USA, and that those cows came from outside the country. I remember two cow cases specifically. Maybe they are talking about full blown BSE cases. Pretty deceptive if they are making a distinction between an infected cow and a full blown disease. It reads like a Beef Council publicity memo.

The test rate was 1 cow tested for every 12,000 cows that were allowed to pass through the system untested. It was at that test rate that the first infected cow was found in the US. There was mild public outcry, so the government increased the testing (tenfold!) all the way up to a staggering 1 in 1,200. Then another infected cow was found in the US. After a few years of no more hits, the testing rate has dropped back down to a lower (unknown to me) number.

Where are all the numbers of infected humans in the US? That's the only legitimate point the pro-beef lobby has. There really aren't any cases. But it's interesting that the human variant of mad cow disease has almost the same symptoms as Alzheimers. And reported Alzheimers cases have increased astronomically in the last few decades. It would be very easy for misdiagnosed vCDJ cases to remain hidden within the population of reported Alzheimers cases.

Quote:

In a small study at Yale led by Manuelidis in 1989, researchers discovered that 13 percent of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's had CJD.

"The conclusion people might draw is that CJD is underdiagnosed and clinically can't be discriminated that easily from Alzheimer's disease," Manuelidis said.

CJD is not to be confused with vCJD, but it points to the common occurance of misdiagnosing dementia cases. With 4 million Alzheimers cases in this country, even a tiny percentage of misdiagnosed vCJD would add up to a lot of cases.

I don't feel much like arguing about mad cow now, especially in this thread, because with each passing day, the beef supply gets safer, and years have passed since there were BIG problems with the beef supply. It's basically safe now. But you couldn't say that 5-10 years ago because the rules were different and the testing rate was too low to have any validity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 535522)

Well there you go. You have a bit of a bias here on this issue. I'm just a beef consumer (or in this case, not a consumer any more) who knows how to read.

I really have little interest in having this discussion again, because it's history at this point. Beef producers used to grind up downer cows and feed them to healthy cows as standard practice, but after the mad cow scare, that practice was banned. Now that NEW rules have been in effect for maybe a decade, it's very unlikely for cows now to have the disease. And the beef supply is probably safe by now, because any infected cows have been eaten. I'm still going to wait a while before I start eating it again. Griff's comment about the dairy cows is a good point.
Please do not use your brush to paint me and other beef producers with your bias. I never ground up any downer cows to feed my cows neither have any of the beef producers I know. No one has done that in the USA in 20 years. That was still the practice in the UK and other countries but not here. We bury those cows. When they were allowed to be used as dog food thats where they went not in human food. Beef producers do not deserve that criticism if they are selling standing cows that become down during trucking. It is up to the processor to remove that cow and dispose of it in the manner accepted by the FDA and USDA.

This is simply false. You yourself have stated that there were cases of BSE infected cows in the USA, and that those cows came from outside the country. I remember two cow cases specifically. Maybe they are talking about full blown BSE cases. Pretty deceptive if they are making a distinction between an infected cow and a full blown disease. It reads like a Beef Council publicity memo.
These two cows originated in other countries. They were not from the US. US beef producers do not feed cattle in the same way as these other countries had.

The test rate was 1 cow tested for every 12,000 cows that were allowed to pass through the system untested. It was at that test rate that the first infected cow was found in the US.
There was mild public outcry, so the government increased the testing (tenfold!) all the way up to a staggering 1 in 1,200. Then another infected cow was found in the US. After a few years of no more hits, the testing rate has dropped back down to a lower (unknown to me) number.

Where are all the numbers of infected humans in the US? That's the only legitimate point the pro-beef lobby has. There really aren't any cases. But it's interesting that the human variant of mad cow disease has almost the same symptoms as Alzheimers.
While it may have the same symptoms it is not the same and that is just your assumption.
And reported Alzheimers cases have increased astronomically in the last few decades. It would be very easy for misdiagnosed vCDJ cases to remain hidden within the population of reported Alzheimers cases. CJD is not to be confused with vCJD, but it points to the common occurance of misdiagnosing dementia cases. With 4 million Alzheimers cases in this country, even a tiny percentage of misdiagnosed vCJD would add up to a lot of cases.
Nice scare tactic but no proof.

I don't feel much like arguing about mad cow now, especially in this thread, because with each passing day, the beef supply gets safer, and years have passed since there were BIG problems with the beef supply. It's basically safe now. But you couldn't say that 5-10 years ago because the rules were different and the testing rate was too low to have any validity.

Read The Jungle and then visit a modern day meat packing plant and then get back to me :)
My views are not based on bias they are based on fact not meat producer's propaganda or any animal rights propaganda. Most of the animals I raise are sold to kids for their 4-H beef projects. The rest are freezer beef or replacement genetics for other club calf producer's breeding programs. You are simply repeating AR activist propaganda. The solution for you is simple don't eat meat but don't use PETA tactics to scare others into thinking there is anything wrong with the beef supply in this country because of beef producers.

That was really funny Zen LMAO!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana (Post 535543)

Please do not use your brush to paint me and other beef producers with your bias. I never ground up any downer cows to feed my cows neither have any of the beef producers I know. No one has done that in the USA in 20 years....

Beef producers do not deserve that criticism if they are selling standing cows that become down during trucking. It is up to the processor to remove that cow and dispose of it in the manner accepted by the FDA and USDA.

As recently as 2003, the manner accepted by the FDA and USDA was to grind up those downer cows and add them to feed to be fed to other cows.

You seem to be saying the problem is not with the "beef producers" but with the "processors." As a consumer, I don't care who tainted the meat. I just wanted it to stop.

The new December 2003 FDA/USDA regulations pretty much put a stop to it (although the inspections are pathetic.) So I'm just waiting for that entire population of cattle to be eaten before I dive back in. Not sure when that will be, but I'll stipulate again that the beef supply is probably safe by now.

Cheers.

That is an absolute lie show your source or better yet eat fish. Don't mind the mercury or PBBs they won't cause alzhiemers :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum (Post 535441)

: makes Nirvana a nice cup of tea :

So, two cows were standing at the feed trough and one said "Moo, I'm pretty worried about this mad cow disease". And the other one replied "I'm not. I'm a rabbit".

I have a cartoon I saw online once. I wrote to the guy and told him he had used the word "effect" when it should have been "affect" but also to tell him I thought it was a great cartoon. He wrote back and thanked me, said he was retired english teacher and couldn't believe the mistake. He sent me a fixed copy in the mail, and i framed it and hung it up.

It's along the same lines: one cow saying "I'm so worried we may get mad cow disease." The other cow says "Don't worry, they contained that in England, besides, it doesn't affect us goats."

Even before FDA prohibited feeding protein derived from ruminants, other than blood products, to ruminants in August 1997, only small amounts of animal proteins were fed to ruminants in the United States, primarily to dairy cattle, because of the relatively high cost of this type of feed. Range cattle, which are on pasture most of their lives, typically receive little protein supplement of any kind.

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content...ntentid=250926

Holy crap, you are right. It was 1997 that feeding downer cows to other cows was banned. I was confused, because it was December 2003 that you could still feed a downer cow to a human.

But if you are trying to argue that the beef supply 5-10 years ago was safe, you aren't scoring any points for yourself by digging up those stats.

I'm done with this discussion. I really didn't want to be having it in the first place.

cheers

Downer cow:
"You know, this range isn't as green as the old one. Besides, they're just gonna slaughter us anyway. Probably gonna get hoof and mouth disease in the feed lot. Your brand looks infected."

Downer cows, who needs 'em around anyway?

Just for you F3 ;)
Foot and Mouth Disease
The US has had 9 FMD outbreaks since 1870. The most devastating outbreak happened in 1914. It originated from Michigan but it was its entry into the stockyards in Chicago that turned it into an epizootic. 3,500 livestock herds were infected across the US, totaling over 170,000 cattle, sheep and swine. The eradication came at a cost of 4.5 million 1914 USD dollars. A 1924 outbreak in California resulted not only in the slaughter of 109,000 farm animals, but also 22,000 deer. The US saw its latest FMD outbreak in Montebello, California in 1929. This outbreak originated in hogs that had eaten infected meat scraps from a tourist steamship that had stocked meat in Argentina. 3,600 animals were slaughtered and the disease was contained in as little as one month.[13][14]

You know that, and I know that, but do the cows know that?

A good friend of mine is a large animal vet she keeps me up to date about things like not being afraid of tricky noses and the like.

I guess it isn't funny when you are constantly confronted by ignorance and scary "facts."

But I thought it was funny and that's all that matters.
:0

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 535558)

You totally missed the point. It is suspected that BSE has its origins in feeding ruminant bone and blood meal to ruminants which was not widely done in this country and that was banned over ten years ago.
Dairy cows do not typically last over 5 years in confinement on cement. Those would be your downer cows. Down because of the way they were kept and they had toes removed or because they had respiratory infections, not because they had BSE. Downer cow does not = BSE. Do I want to eat those cows? No, I rarely eat at McDs and I don't eat luncheon meat.