What's mildly irritating you today?

[Pie]

Then why won't the Agriculture Department allow voluntary 100% BSE testing in the American herd?

Beef Producer's Bid to Test All Its Cattle for BSE Denied
WASHINGTON, DC, April 15, 2004 (ENS) - Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, a privately owned producer and processor, is threatening legal action against the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the agency's decision last week not to allow it to voluntarily test all of its cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2...4-04-15-02.asp

[Nirvana]

How would 100% testing of anything be voluntary?

[Aliantha]

Because it's not required by law? They want to do it 'voluntarily? That'd be my guess.

[Pie]

One company wanted to test 100% of its own herd, so its international customers would continue to order. That was disallowed by the USDA. No one was making anyone test involuntarily.

[Nirvana]

That company said:"We are challenging USDA’s authority to control the sales of BSE diagnostic tests in the United States."

That is the problem letting that company test without FDA involvement. BTW the federal government allows other food companies to test their products and guess what? People are dying from eating peanut products. No one is dying from eating BSE meat.

[Nirvana]

Another reason is there is no reason to test animals 24 months and under. BSE is impossible in those animals which are mostly steers, which is where most of your better meat in the USA comes from not including hot dogs, bolonga [old bulls] and the stuff at McD's which comes from old holstein cows.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Nirvana

There has not been a downer cow in the USA that has tested positive for mad cow.

What's the testing rate? How many cows go into the food supply for each cow that is tested? (I know the answer, I just want to see you acknowledge how pathetically small the testing is and has been.)

You can't test beef as little as the FDA/USDA does and say anything with any authority about the state of the US beef supply in regards to mad cow.

With each passing day, the US beef supply gets safer and safer, and it's probably completely safe now. But the testing has virtually nothing to do with knowing how safe it is. It's the new regulations passed a few years ago to prevent downer cows from being fed to healthy cows that made the difference.

[Griff]

There is about to be a huge influx of old dairy cattle into the system. Milk checks are about half what they were a year ago.

[Nirvana]

[massive thread drift here] I want to explain there is a difference between dairy beef and beef cattle. The cattle raised in feed lots are usually breeds that are bred for the meat market not the milk supply.
I will say again most of the meat you are consuming unless you are eating McDs Burger King etc , or cold cuts, is from cattle that are under or at 24 months of age. It is impossible for them to have BSE.
The reason there will soon be a massive influx of dairy cattle to the hamburger market is because milk prices went from $20 a hundred weight to $9 a hundred weight and that is costing milk producers to supply their product since they had to pay for $7 a bushel corn. Our country demands cheap food and it is cheap compared to other things but you cannot expect livestock producers to supply their products for free or to pay the consumer to take their products. .

I am a beef producer I do not raise or sell old dairy cows. People have been eating at MdcD since its inception lots of people eat cold cuts and luncheon meats, if there was a real threat of BSE in this country where are the cases of CFJ disease to prove that we need more testing?

[Nirvana]

BTW aren't you paying a pretty price for a good steak now? Why would you want to add more costs to a product thru government testing when it is a fact that cattle 24 months and under cannot have BSE?
If the government has to test every single dairy cow for BSE in this country milk will be about $25 a gallon you may as well go out and buy your own cow and pasteurizing equipment. =)

[Pie]

<undrift> I washed my cellphone. Damnit, I really liked this one. </back to drift>

[Nirvana]

Neither BSE among cattle, nor the new human variant of CJD, have been found in the United States. BSE was first reported among cattle in the United Kingdom (U.K) in November 1986. The source of the BSE outbreak is uncertain, but it is thought to have been amplified by feeding cattle with meat-and-bone meal from BSE-infected cattle. To contain the disease, the British government took a number of steps, including the institution of a feed ban prohibiting the use of meat-and-bone meal and slaughtering all cattle believed to be infected. These steps reduced the number of confirmed BSE cases in the U.K. from 36,680 in 1992 to fewer than 1,500 in 2000.

More recently, some cases of BSE have been identified among cattle in other European countries. Between 1989 and 2000, at least 1,642 cases of BSE have been identified among cattle in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

Among humans, the total worldwide number of known vCJD cases is 92, including 88 in the U.K., three in France and one in Ireland.

U.S. agencies have acted quickly with precautionary steps to prevent BSE in cattle or vCJD in humans from occurring in this country. These steps include:

* Prohibiting importation of live ruminant animals and most ruminant products from all of Europe (USDA)

* Examining U.S. cattle exhibiting abnormal neurological behavior to test for BSE (USDA)

* Prohibiting the use of most mammalian protein in the manufacture of animal feeds given to ruminant animals (FDA)

* Recommending that animal tissues used in drug products should not come from a country with BSE (FDA)

* Issuing guidelines asking blood centers to exclude potential donors who have spent six or more cumulative months in the U.K. between 1980 and 1996 from donating blood (FDA)

* Conducting regular surveillance for any cases of vCJD among humans (CDC)

* Conducting research on BSE, CJD, vCJD and related neurological diseases (NIH)

BACKGROUND ON BSE AND vCJD

BSE (sometimes referred to as "mad cow disease") and variant and classic CJD belong to the unusual group of progressive, degenerative neurological diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). These diseases are characterized by a long incubation period of up to several years, during which there is no visible indication of the disease. The incubation period for BSE among cattle ranges from three to eight years; for vCJD among humans, the incubation period is unknown, but is at least five years and could extend up to 20 years or longer. The diseases are invariably fatal; there is no known treatment or cure.

It is believed that vCJD may be acquired from eating food products containing the BSE agent, and there is strong epidemiologic and laboratory evidence for a causal association between vCJD and BSE. The absence of confirmed cases of vCJD in geographic areas free of BSE supports a causal association. BSE and vCJD have never been identified in the United States.

BSE among cattle was first described in the U.K. in November 1986. Epidemiological evidence established that the outbreak of BSE was related to the production and use over many years of contaminated meat-and-bone meal. The source of the BSE outbreak is uncertain. There is strong evidence and general agreement that the outbreak was amplified by feeding rendered bovine meat-and-bone meal to young calves.

The vast majority of BSE cases have been reported in the U.K. Through November 2000, about 177,500 cases of BSE have been confirmed there in more than 35,000 herds of cattle. The U.K. epidemic peaked in January 1993 at nearly 1,000 new cases per week. Surveillance in Europe has also led to the identification of cases of BSE in Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland and, most recently, in Germany, Spain and Italy. From 1995 through early December 2000, 88 human cases of vCJD were reported in the U.K, three in France and one in Ireland.

European countries have instituted a variety of public health control measures, such as BSE surveillance, the culling of sick animals, the banning of specified risk materials (SRMs), or a combination of these, to prevent potentially BSE-infected tissues from entering the human food chain. Due to its early outbreak, the most stringent of these measures have been applied in the U.K. In June 2000, the European Union Commission on Food Safety and Animal Welfare adopted a decision requiring all member states to remove SRMs from the animal feed and human food chains as of October 1, 2000; such bans had already been instituted in most member states.

U.S. ACTIONS: STEPS TO MINIMIZE ANY POSSIBLE RISK

No cases of BSE or vCJD have been identified in the United States despite ongoing nationwide surveillance. Working together, agencies within the federal government have taken a number of steps to minimize the risk of BSE in this country.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2001pres/01fsbse.html

Back to undrift

[Jaydaan]

I was called into work on my day off. When I told my boss I could not come in (various reasons) I got the " well, if you can't, you can't *sigh*" Now I am cranky cause I hate the guilt trip. This is the FIRST time I said no in 2 years. I have not had a night alone with hubby in 13 days, and I am just the supervisor where I work.... make me the manager and I would have come in.

[Cicero]

MMmm....yah............Did you get the memo? lol!

[ZenGum]

: 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".