Mad cow fears take wide toll

Mad cow fears take wide toll Foreign beef bans, uncertain test and court fight unsettle ranchers, industry By Jim Wasserman -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, June 19, 2005 Get weekday updates of Sacramento Bee headlines and breaking news. Sign up here. Facing the crowd at Cattlemen's Livestock Market, auctioneers Max Olvera and Ralph Wade seemingly never saw 4,200 steers and heifers with so much promise, so beautiful and so worth buying. Their flattery knew no bounds on a recent Saturday that linked Northern California ranchers with cattle buyers from the Midwest and Northwest. "Here's some cattle that's got some genetics!" "Home raised, no implants. They're all drug-free." "These are showstoppers! You can put these right out in the front pasture where the neighbors can see 'em." The cheerful atmosphere reflected record good times in the nation's $175 billion cattle business, where 1,300-pound steers fetched an average $84.50 per hundred pounds last year. That's up $20 since 2002. Yet beneath the good mood are worries. Ranchers anxiously await further test results on a cow somewhere in the United States that could ruin their party with a diagnosis of mad cow disease. One day after U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns declared: "We know American beef is safe," his department announced June 10 that a U.S. cow, one of nearly 400,000 tested during the last year, had tested positive for the disease in one test.

You'll never see that happen. even in Canada, where beff goes on the market and fetches just 10 cents a lb, prib rib sells for $14 a lb. As far as mad cow scares go, BSE is a natural occuring disease which effects one in every million cattle, so we SHOULD be finding about 85-100 cases a year, what's scary is we DON'T find more cases. what makes it spead more rapidly amoung the herd is feeding rendered beef by-product from infected cattle back to the herd, a practice which is supposed to now be banned, but there isn't any way to police this cheaper by-product from prophit minded ranchers from happening.

Plus human cases of Cjvd which is the human disease whch results from eating bad beef isn't a reportable disease in most states, so we have no way of knowing if there is an increase of this amoung the population or not. it also is a naturaly occuring disease among human's effecting one in every million. The ONLY way of ensuring our beef is BSE free is to test each and every animal which goes to slaughter, like the Japanese do. It isn't costly, each kit costing $14 per head, so it only adds mere fractions of a penny per pound to overall beef costs. Cattleman's associations resist such testing. We should demand it.

"The vast majority of beef in this nation have never, and will never see any feed except for grass and grain. They will never be in a situation where they can possibly be exposed to Mad Cow."

That's simply not true. The dairy industry uses protein supplements on a daily basis to increase milk production. Those things end up in the grinding room too. Calves sold to stockyards are often fed supplements as well before they hit the auction block to improve appearance, and cattle are given grain/protein supplements for "finishing" before they go to slaughter.The product they use comes from rendering plants, which up till recently have been banned from using beef by-product in any product produced for cattle suppliments. It is however still available for chickens and hogs, turkeys. (and cheaper) There have been some ranchers who were caught using the stuff.

That's how the big boys at the stockyards do things. Farmyard cattle before they enter the stockyards never see supplement's other than grains as you say, but few of those ever go directly to the slaughterhouse, they go to the autionyard, where they are bought up by the Stockyard owners, then to the slaughterhouse.

I should know, I was raised of a beef farm myself. Plus, we don't see downer cattle in the beef industry with BSE because cattle are usually marketed at 24-30 months, BSE doesn't advance that rapidly where it would cause a cow to drop on it's feet at that age. It doesn't mean they don't have it. That's why you see cases show up in dairy cattle, because they are kept till old age. The only time you see a case beef cattle is when it's an old breeding bull, or it is a downer for another reason. even then, a downer with an obvious ailment, like a broken leg, won't be tested.

This is the reason they put restrictions on deboning machines, so spinal ganglia doesn't get stripped out along with the meat. it's the spinal colum and ganglia, brain, eyes where you will find BSE concentrated.

While most folks know about the problem of offal recycled into feed, very view know about the research on soil as a reservoir for prions. Simply implimenting feed restrictions may have not solved the problem.

The other issue is cross species contamination and the ongoing spread of chronic wasting disease in deer and elk. We also don't know if the increase in Alzheimers is related since autopsies aren't normally done in those deaths. We do know that genetics plays a part in an individual's susceptibility. So the popular "Beef! It's what's for dinner" could be Beef! It may be what's eating you if you have the wrong genes.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.