Posted on 12/28/2003 11:22:49 PM PST by Utah Girl
The discovery of mad cow disease in the United States has tilted the political landscape at the start of President George Bush's re-election year by injecting uncertainty into a fragile economy and drawing scrutiny to his handling of an industry that was a financial and political ally in the last election, analysts in the two main parties say.
White House officials had sounded ebullient as they headed into the holidays at a time when economic indicators were turning up, Saddam Hussein was in captivity and a new Medicare law had just been signed. Now, the Administration will start 2004 under the type of sudden economic cloud that Bush aides had expected would come only from a terrorist attack.
Bush has closer ties to ranching than to any other industry besides oil, and Democrats seized on this new avenue for attacking Bush as a captive of business. Howard Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, said that it showed "the complete lack of foresight by the Bush Administration once again".
Dan Glickman, agriculture secretary under Bill Clinton and now director of Harvard University's Institute of Politics, said Bush had just weeks to come up with a plan for more rigorous livestock tracing and testing. He suggested Bush bring together representatives of science, consumers and the industry early next month - when his aides had hoped to focus on the coming State of the Union address.
Anyway, that's how Mad Cow Disease got into the US. It's clearly Bush's fault. And now, we got 10,000 people dying every week from this dread disease. But don't worry, friends, John Kerry has a plan ...
This is udder bias.
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From Medline: Trichinosis is a parasitic disease that results from eating undercooked meat, most frequently pork, which contains cysts of Trichinella spiralis. T. spiralis can be found in pork, bear, fox, rat, horse and lion meat.
Trichinosis is a common infection worldwide, but it is seldom seen in the United States because of regulations regarding the feeding of domestic animals and meat-processing inspections.
When a person eats meat from an infected animal, trichinella cysts hatch in the intestines and grow into adult roundworms, which measure 2-4 mm long.
The roundworms then produce offspring that migrate through the gut wall and into the bloodstream. These parasites tend to invade muscle tissues, including the heart and diaphgragm (the breathing muscle under the lungs). They can also affect the lungs and brain.
Domestic meat animals (hogs) raised specifically for consumer consumption under USDA guidelines and inspection can be considered safe. Wild animals, especially carnivores (meat eaters) or omnivores (animals that eat both meat and plants), should be considered a possible source of roundworm disease.
There are approximately 40 cases per year in the US. Medline: Trichinosis
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Curious?
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