I was driving back from a day trip to Oregon late Tuesday evening when I was saddened to hear the news report of a case of
mad cow disease from a farm in Yakima county.
Even if this is an
isolated case, as in Canada, the industry is still going to be devastated.
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| I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore... |
While reading anything, you should try to think about the author's interests. For example, the beef industry is going to advocate the safety of their product
because that's their livelihood. Governments will seek to assure the citizens,
because that's their job, which is why you're seeing a lot of broad proclamations against importing US beef. Thus, you'll appreciate the obvious
double standard here:
our beef is safe for us when it's our mad cow, but their beef is not safe for us when it's their mad cow.
You can bet there will be
a lot more finger pointing and (less overt) PR campaigns in the ensuing weeks.
An interesting book on the subject of Mad Cow is
Mad Cow U.S.A. by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. It's circa 1997, and available for free download. Rampton and Stauber have several other interesting books out analyzing journalism and the use of PR to manipulate public opinion. I'm not sure why, but I find this stuff fascinating.
(See also: Trust Us, We're Experts!, Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, and Mad Cow U.S.A.)
On the subject of this week's news, I offer these random concerns:
Only "downer" cows are tested. A "downer" cow is one that either cannot walk or has difficulty walking under its own power. In other word, it's a sick cow. The cow can still be slaughtered, and finds itself into the food chain before the results are returned. (Source: KIRO TV)
When a cow is suspect, its brain and spinal tissue, the parts that are potentially teeming with BSE prions, are sent to a rendering plant, with all the other parts of the cow deemed "unfit for human consumption," where they are turned into pet food, oils and other products. (If you're squeamish, you don't want to click here or
here.) This shouldn't come as a shocker, but the Washington Times reports the FDA may now recall pet food.
In July, the FDA filed an injunction against X-Cel feeds, Inc (based in Tacoma) for violating the FDA's 1997 animal feed rule which basically bans the use of protein from ruminant animals (cud-chewing animals such as cows, sheep, and goats) in feed for the same. (Source: Food and Drug Administration)The use of ruminant protein in cattle feed is believed to have caused the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. "Eating beef from BSE-infected cattle is thought to be the cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. (See more)
If you've donated blood, you're used to being quizzed thoroughly on your sexual practices, piercings/tattoos and foreign travel. The questions on Camaroon, Haiti, and other third world countries have been there for a while and deal with things like malaria and HIV, both with well-established transmission paths through blood. However, in the last two years, questions were added concerning time spent in western Europe, with specific emphasis on France and the U.K. To quote the Canadian blood centre:
As of October 1, 2001, people will no longer be eligible to donate blood or plasma if they have spent a cumulative total of three months or more in the United Kingdom (U.K.) since 1980, or if they have spent a cumulative total of three months or more in France since 1980, or if they have spent a cumulative total of five years or more in Western Europe outside the U.K. or France since 1980. In addition, people will no longer be eligible to donate blood or plasma if they have had a blood transfusion in the U.K. since 1980.This is owing to the theoretical risk of transmission of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) through blood.
The Red Cross has a similar position because CJD (the human form of BSE) may be spread through blood transfusions. The concern appears to be well-founded as the BBC reports a UK patient died from CJD may have caught the illness from a
blood transfusion.While hunting around for more information, I found a curious link suggesting some calves' diets are being augmented with protein derived from cattle and pig blood. Indeed, American Protein, who's been making spray products for pigs for over 20 years, has spray
supplements for calves. With the recent wave of news,
they've naturally begun to put out
additional information espousing the
safety of their products.
This paragraph caught my eye:
Blood has never been implicated in bovine-to-bovine transmission of either natural or experimental BSE (European Commission Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), April 2000; SSC, October 2000). Despite intensive research trials and detailed epidemiological evidence, no BSE infectivity has been detected in bovine blood in either natural or experimental cases (Bradley, 1999, 2000; Fraser et al., 1992; Kimberlin and Wilesmith, 1994; Middleton and Barlow, 1993; Moon, 1996). The Office International des Epizooties (OIE), SSC and World Health Organization (WHO) all include blood and plasma products in Category IV, tissues with no detected infectivity.
The study was done a year prior to the blood agencies limiting donors.
A
Prion is a protein fragment that contains no genetic information to propagate itself through the victim (unlike viruses). Research is emerging, but prions seem to corrupt normal proteins (PrPc) that sit on the external surface of the brain by altering their shape. Thus they act like a catalyst.(More info: BBC)
Other useful links:
BBC FAQ on Mad Cow
Nature Magazine (site appears to be down as I write this)
BBC on prion diseases
Prions
Acronyms:
TSE - transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, the group of infections brain diseases caused by prions.
BSE - Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease.
CWD - Chronic wasting disease is a TSE found in some deer and elk in Colorado and Wyoming.
CJD - Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a fatal, human brain illness with genetic or unknown causes, appears in one person in a million per year.
vCJD - Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: vCJD. The "human" version of mad cow disease, similar to CJD but appears in younger people. (Its incubation time is much faster.)
Kuru - a human TSE found in New Guinea and transmitted when people handled and ate the brains of their dead relatives. Analysis of this established that ingestion of brain tissue was the cause. When the tribe stopped cannibalism, the propagation of teh diseased stopped.
Scrapie - A TSE that has afflicted sheep since the 1700s or before. Not known to be transmitted to humans.
TSE - Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy refers to the group of infectious brain diseases caused by prions.
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