Meat of Infected Cow Found in More States

News-Journal ^ | 12/28/2003 | AP

[Phaedrus]

MyWayNews offers the same article but with the following additional paragraphs.

The Food and Drug Administration is trying to find out if the cow ate contaminated feed - a difficult task because the animal may have gotten the disease from feed it ate years before it appeared sick. The disease has an incubation period of four or five years.

Dr. Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said that an animal could get sick if it eats a little bit of infected material, as little as half a gram.

"Even if a small amount amount of brain or central nervous system (material) were to get into cattle feed, there is the potential for even that very small dose to result in the disease," Sundlof said.

Sundlof said officials are less certain about how much would infect a human. "It's not known what dose would infect humans, but it would higher for humans than for cattle," he said.

Investigators have considered other ways the disease could spread. Although scientists have never found a case of mad cow infection being passed from a mother cow to its calf, they want to test the sick cow's calves for the disease as a precaution.

My questions: How can Sundlof possibly know this (i.e. "... half a gram")? What is the basis for his statement?

[AmericanDave]

Yeah but how would you know if a chicken had it?!!!!!
They could ALL have mad cow already......

[spectre]

I don't know, but I AM getting sick just reading thru this thread..

My relatives eat TRIPE, which is the lining cow's stomach... I suppose that is safe?

I'm not touching a hot dog, or potted meat, or spam..or even a T-Bone steak cut because it's supposed to be closest to the contamination area of the cow.

sw

[tubebender]

It explains why Stockton is the Crime Capital of California...

[TexasCowboy]

"Can you get Mad Cow from licking off your lipstick?"

Only if you kiss cows with a certain shade of red.

[.38sw]

I thought Oakland was the crime capitol of the world.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

I don't think they are supposed to accept 'downers', but some do anyway.

The vast majority of downers are just that - can't walk. Old, broken leg, etc. I can't imagine a house taking a cow that's foaming at the mouth or otherwise suffering from a disease.

They test for this by checking it's reflexes.

Can errors be made? Well, we just learned that they can. Did the industry get a wake up call from hell? You betcha. I think it would be a massive competitive advantage to "sell safety" by earning credibility with the public.

Remember how Intel recalled all early Pentium chips even though there was a virtually no chance of the error affecting anybody? It wasn't about chips - but rather trust and integrity. Andy Grove, Intel's CEO at the time, called this, a "Strategic Inflection Point". It probably saved the company and neutralized a whole squadron of trial lawyers that were fixing to feast on Intel's misfortune.

I'm not expecting the beef industry to recall every beef product, but they need to do a little more than just the government minimums. And then they need to communicate how well they do their job to the public. After all, lose their trust and you're outta business. As it stands, they're going to lose a bunch.

I, on the other hand, will enjoy a respite from record prices as a beef consumer.

[meatloaf]

Don't forget gelatin as in Jello.

[MinuteGal]

But....but....have we stopped beef imports from Canada?

Leni

[Lady Jag]

They say the brain and spinal cord are the most dangerous which may mean that BSE is predominant in the nervous system.

I'm eating steak and will continue to do so. Since BSE takes 20 years to show up, what's the sense stopping eating beef now? We may already have it.

I don't go the track or casino or buy lottery tickets, but subtract the numbers of beef stock destroyed in UK with the number of human victims and you'll realize you have better odds of winning the lottery than getting Mad Cow.

So eat steak and buy lottery tickets. If you win the lottery buy your own herd.

[meatloaf]

Until you find out that beef offal is fed to chickens and chicken waste is fed to ..... cattle. The law only restricts byproducts from mammalian sources from being fed to cattle.

Chickens aren't mammals.

[Toskrin]

There was a case in Italy of a man and his cat that both died of spongioform encephalopathy.

[cynicom]

Ain't mammals???? Golleeeee.

[autoresponder]

Agricultural meat products increase in cost over time just as average incomes have since WWII.

Unlike some products like computers and basic electronics made abroad which dropped as technology and production methods improved.

Compare the price of an new 2004 Ford Mustang to that of a 1965 Ford Mustang.

Economics and finance is not determined by emotion or personal desire.

Both the cattle business and automobile industry are labor and material intensive.

In New York City there are people with incomes of over a million dollars a year paying under $600 a month for a large 3 bedroom rent controlled apartment in Manhattan.

That same apartment in Connecticut would be well over $2000 a month and in North Carolina over $1500 a month.

Yet the average income in North Carolina is much lower than in NYC.

You are wishing for Socialist price controls on beef like New Yorkers have on housing.

Note New York liberals are not demanding wage and salary controls close to those levels of 40 years ago.

You have a hidden touch of Socialism and Oz mixed in.

Check the increases of income compared to food prices on charts that go back to WWII.

Compare food increases to real estate home price increases.

Compare food increases to automotive price increases.

Compare the relative amount spent on food in the USA to that in Europe today spent as a % of income.

[VeritatisSplendor]

jello

[Lady Jag]

Baby, baby, baby...

[TexasCowboy]

"But....but....have we stopped beef imports from Canada?"

No, I just sent Bill and Hillary a couple of Canadian ribeyes.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Thanks. I needed that.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I'll repeat your good question.

Since this was a dairy cow, what are the risks to the milk supply?

[Lady Jag]

I'll see your question and add one:

When they were in serious trouble, UK banned offal from steak & Kidney pies, etc., and I've gotten differing definitions of offal. Here is an Offal Recipe Page and it refers to calves liver, kidneys, organ meats. How dangerous are those compared to the brain and spinal cord threat?