A beef with the USDA

The Toledo Blade ^ | Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | editorial

[Willie Green]

FOR the first time, an animal born in the United States has been determined to have mad cow disease. Although authorities insist the public is not at risk, it's a concern because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has admitted mistakes and oversights in testing the animal, believed to have originated in Texas. This is a wake-up call for the agency to mend its shortcomings to ensure that no infected beef reaches public food supplies.

It's refreshing that USDA Secretary Mike Johanns is owning up to mistakes and is taking criticism instead of trying to dodge it. That would be difficult anyway because it was evident that the animal was not imported. It was the first animal ever found to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, born in the United States.

[Willie Green]

Instead of assuring the quality and safety of our Food Supply,
the USDA has been busy shilling the Bush agenda for the Mexification of the United States.
USDA plants its own news
Johanns and Derbez Sign Partnership to Promote USDA Rural Development Programs

This is no different than the Department of Homeland Security's intentional neglect of illegal immigration.

[Willie Green]

ping

[RockinRight]

FOR the first time, an animal born in the United States has been determined to have mad cow disease.

Here's a picture of the afflicted bovine:

[B4Ranch]

"believed to have originated in Texas. "

Or was this a yearling brought over from Mexico?

[Servant of the 9]

"Mad Cow", which before the British outbreak of a few years ago was called "Blind Staggers" occurs spontaneously as well as being communicated by by feeding policies.
Sheep, deer and Elk also get it and it is called "Scrapie".
People develop it spontaneously as "Kreuzfeld-Jacob Disease"

It has always been with us and always will.
It is also one of the rarest diseases in the World and isn't worth worrying about buy rational people.

SO9

[SAJ]

Well said.

''Paging Mr. Little. Mr. Chicken Little to the white courtesy telephone, please.''

[Texas Songwriter]

I am a cattle raiser in Texas. The USDA, it has been reported, has been sitting on information for 7 months. ONe excuse is that the downer animal was so covered with mud that they could not discern the breed.That is laughable, but it held off questions for a period of time. To my knowledge no beef cattle in Texas or the US for that matter are ever fed neurological tissue. Not ever.

So the question I have is.....How did the beef animal contract the disease?

It seems that I can reasonably conclude that this proves that there are other ways to contract BSE than the animal ingesting neural tissue with the prions.

If that is the case, then the information we have been given here-to-for has been in error.

What else have we been told which is in error or confabulated?

I remember in the early 80's when we were told absolutely the only way to contract AIDS is by homosexual activity or IV drug use with infected needle.C.Everet Coop irresponsibly stated he would place his hand and arm down into blood contaminated with the HIV virus. We have since learned there are many ways to contract this disease.

Will the same convoluted path to knowledge about BSE (Crutzfied-Jacob Disease in humans) be followed.

I feel I can not believe the USDA. They are obviously covering up for a wealthy cattleman. Which ranch did the animal come off of...King Ranch, Briscoe Ranches? Why the intrigue?

I am tired of the government treating me like I am not an adult. I can and will make decisions in my and my family's best interest, but I cannot make decisions based upon lies and obfuscation from the federal government. I didn't believe a damn thing the Clinton government told me. I am having just as hard of a time believing this administration. Tell us the truth.

[felixmh]

It might be worth bothering about for reasons other than the disease itself...

My brother-in-law is a vet in England. He used to work in a large animal practice until the Mad Cow outbreak. We visited right around then - he was a changed person. Having to kill the animals by the hundreds after he'd spent all those years trying to help them. The farming area they lived in was like a scene from hell - huge piles of dead cows in the fields and the livelihoods of so many people wiped out. Even a year or more afterwords when we visited again you would only see tiny herds standing in a corner of a field - it takes a while to recover from that kind of thing. He went and worked for a feed company after that - didn't want to be involved if there was ever another outbreak.

[redgolum]

BSE is a major thing, because as you well know, the world decided it is.

I find it funny that in my grandpa's old vet books from the 1920's it talks about the same thing as BSE, and it looked like it was known for some time. The latest scare is a bit of overreaction.

However, it has destroyed the beef market in Europe, and it seems to be doing the same here. How many more export contracts are going to be pulled after this case?

[stillafreemind]

Yes..it is a big deal. Even if you want to ignore the health possibilities. There is the economics of the cattlemen at risk here. Pretty darned glib of you guys to dismiss the industry so easily. By that..are we to assume that you would rather purchase 'foreign beef'?

I agree that I also do not have faith in the USDA..on alot of levels. There are multiple 'wasting' diseases. 'Wasting is part of life .. so to speak..in the pork industry. BUT...if it can be proved that this cow absolutely was fed like a cow was meant to be fed...then hello..we have a problem. And the world is ready to pounce and inflate it to the inth degree.

[Servant of the 9]

It might be worth bothering about for reasons other than the disease itself...

Since the English mess was caused by bad feeding practices that have been illegal here for years, that situation can't develop.
Here it is only possible to have isolated cases.

The other cause was the English refusal to admit to problems with their cattle, the same reason they are one of the few countries in the world that still has significant Hoof and Mouth outbreaks. Every other civilized contry stops thee things while they are limited local problems.

SO9

[PAR35]

To my knowledge no beef cattle in Texas or the US for that matter are ever fed neurological tissue. Not ever.

Your unwillingness to even entertain the idea that anti-meat terrorists could have sabotaged an operation by putting out contaminated feed requires that I discount your post.

[Texas Songwriter]

I have actually considered an angry Canadian rancher who might throw feed over a fence here in the states. I do not think it is likely, especially as far down as south as TExas. You trite dismissal based on "antimeat" activist begs the question, "How do they know the feed they would provide is tainted?" Our government has to send brains and spinal cords to a special lab in England to determine positivity of the tissue for the prions.

You paranoia seem to have no bounds.

I am asking the USDA to tell the truth to adult American citizens.

Your analysis and remarks are silly.

[solo gringo]

As long as you market down cattle you can expect to have all kinds of problems with the meat.Most of cattle in the EU were dairy cattle that were affected with bse.I raise some of the finest beef cattle in south Texas.They are raised on grass with no other feed now what happen to them after we sell them is not a problem for me.
As a young man raise in the deep south it was very common to see a cow with blind staggers.Mostly older milk cows of all breeds.I know for a fact there were no parts of other animals fed to these cattle.If one of these old cows got down we made no effort to market them.IMHO that is the problem today.There should be a law against selling down cows.

[green iguana]

So the question I have is.....How did the beef animal contract the disease?

How do deer get the disease? I guarantee that deer don't eat the brains of infected deer...

[Drammach]

For that matter, how do Bison get it??

[sdpatriot]

>>There should be a law against selling down cows.<<

as a rancher - i agree. and it was my experience that was the method back in the day. my dad always burned the corpses of dead animals as did all the old neighbor farmers. seems they were smarter back then eh?

[Drammach]

I read ( or heard ) somewhere.. The infected cow was one of the last of a group that had been "exposed" to cattle feed with animal parts in it..
It is my belief that, although unstated, the implication was that the cattle in that last group were from canada, and were being held under close "scrutiny" (quarantine?) for that reason..
This cow, allegedly "born in the United States", was the offspring of one of those suspect cattle..

[BrewingFrog]

I believe the cow in question is the animal there was some suspicion about that was found at the Lone Star Packing plant in Saa Angelo, if this animal was "found in Texas" as claimed. Earlier, the USDA was mum about the location.

It is important to remember this one question: "Where are all the dead people?" It was asked by a British researcher not long ago when the supposed incubation time posited for BSE had long passed. He, like the vet described above, was sickened by the slaughter of most of the British herd, for apparently no good reason at all save media-driven hysteria.

BSE/Cruetzfeld-Jakob likely has many triggers, some that have nothing at all to do with the ingestion of animal spinal columns and cerebrums. This has never been shown as a constant vector, only a likely one.

After all, brains and eggs are a tasty favorite in South Texas. You used to be able to find brains in plastic containers in the meat case at the HEB. Considering the hysteria and prophesying of doom that are now going on, couldn't one could ask the same question that the British fellow did?

This is media and protectionist driven hysteria. Nothing more.

Remember, beef. It's what's for dinner. I'm having a t-bone tonight.

[Texas Songwriter]

If you read the USDA press releases they say ingestion of neural tissue with prions is the only vector which results in BSE. My questions revolve around wanting facts. I am not interested in your opinion or the opinion of people who are "antimeat" or "promeat". I want the facts.

If your point is people are hysterical for asking for the facts, your conclusion is naive.

Please inform me of the facts which you possess which tell us that there are "many triggers" which cause BSE/CJ disease. If you can enumerate them I am ready to be educated.

I have a professional and economic and familial interest in gathering these facts.