US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

[treedancer]

Anybody here against the meat packers not testing there cattle for this hideous disease? This report almost makes me want to go back to being a vegetation, except that there is a have a company in our area, that is screwing up the soybeans (Monsanto).

<<WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease .>>

<<The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.>>

<<Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.>>

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mad-Cow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

[RubberFrog]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

...This report almost makes me want to go back to being a vegetation....

Go back?

Seriously, this is a disappointing report. With all of the tainted food slipping in, we should be applauding companies that want to increase testing!

 

[rolmops]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Anybody here against the meat packers not testing there cattle for this hideous disease? This report almost makes me want to go back to being a vegetation, except that there is a have a company in our area, that is screwing up the soybeans (Monsanto).

<<WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease .>>

<<The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.>>

<<Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.>>

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mad-Cow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

This little article shows once again that this administration does not care about a lot of things that it should care about. It mostly cares about big business.
Before too long we may see this administration declare that mercury ,lead and cigarettes are good for you.

 

[treedancer]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Quote RubberFrog


Go back?

Seriously, this is a disappointing report. With all of the tainted food slipping in, we should be applauding companies that want to increase testing!

Yea was a bean eater when I came out of the military, your right on the tainted food slipping in., next time you buy some tooth paste, might want to check the country of origin, some of that crap that got into the pet food, might have also got in some of the tooth paste made in china.

 

[treedancer]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Here?s a good read on our food supply, none political.

<< The recent discovery of an industrial chemical in animal feed and pet food imported from China has added to the mounting criticism of U.S. food safety agencies. But this case represents much more than simply governmental incompetence. It exposes the inherent weaknesses of an industrial global food system designed to benefit multinational agribusiness companies at the expense of public health.>>

<< Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors were simply overwhelmed. They were only able to examine physically 1.3 percent of food imports last year, about three-quarters of the already minute portion examined in 2003.>>

<< Our food system's increasing dependence on imports is no accident. Import dependency is a defining characteristic of an industrial food model driven by U.S. farm and trade policies over the last half century on behalf of agribusiness. U.S. farm policy has encouraged the mass production of only a few cheap crops largely used as food ingredients, animal feed and exports. U.S. trade policy has aggressively pushed for the removal of trade barriers paving the way for the global food trade.>>

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/31/us_food_system_deeply_at_risk.php

 

[CJY]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Disappointing and scary to say the least. As worried as we are with terrorism, we should be worried they could harm us through our food supply in a million different ways. And, mad cow disease is not reversible once you get it.

 

[ricksrster]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Let us read about MAD COW:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3053

 

[RPJS]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

BSE or "Mad Cow Disease" was identified in British cattle in 1986, it is a diease which attacks the brain and nervous system, the disease is contracted be consumming infected material, the rapid spread of the disease within the British heard was identified as being caused by animals eating feed containing meat and bone meal made from infected tissue, these types of feed have now been banned.

In 1996 a new variant of CJD "Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease" was discovered in humans, vCJD showed possible links to BSE (nothing has yet been scientificly proven), in order to eliminate the possibility of the contamination of human food the British government took the following steps c&p

1) The removal of Specified Risk Material

By law, the parts of cattle, and sheep and goats most likely to carry BSE are removed when an animal is slaughtered, and they do not go into our food. These parts of the animal are known as Specified Risk Material (SRM) and include brain and, spinal cord. The Specified Risk Material Control removes almost all risk (99%) that could be present in any animal with BSE.

2) BSE testing of older cattle

From November 2005, cattle aged over thirty months are able to enter the food chain, but only if they have tested negative for BSE. The BSE testing system replaces a blanket ban on cattle aged over thirty months entering the food chain. This BSE Control (called the Over Thirty Months Rule) operated from 1996 until November 2005. Cattle younger than thirty months are unlikely to carry a significant amount of BSE. The move to testing older cattle came about following a comprehensive review by the FSA which found that the additional risk to consumers resulting from the change would be extremely low.

Cattle born before August 1996, when a reinforced ban was introduced on animal feed containing meat and bone meal (see below), will continue to be permanently excluded from the food chain. Animal feed containing meat and bone meal is thought to have been responsible for the spread of BSE among cattle.

3) Mechanically Recovered Meat

In the past, products such as low-cost burgers, sausages, pies and mince included mechanically recovered meat (MRM). This is meat that is stripped from the bone at high pressure because it is impossible to remove by hand. In the mid-1990s the Government banned the use of the vertebral column, or backbone, of cattle in MRM. This ban was expanded in 1998 to cover the vertebral column of all grazing animals. The production of MRM from all ruminant bones is now prohibited throughout the EU.

4) The Feed Ban

A ban on the feeding of MBM to ruminants was introduced in the UK in 1988. In August 1996 this was extended to cover the feeding of MBM to all farm animals. The Regulations now prohibit the use of mammalian protein in feed to ruminant animals, and the incorporation of mammalian meat and bone meal in any farm livestock feed.

The ban on SRM and the BSE testing of older cattle are the two controls that keep potentially infected material out of the human food chain. The feed ban prevents cattle from being exposed to BSE and therefore reduces the incidence, or number of new cases, of BSE.

In addition to these controls, animals with BSE or suspected of having BSE and the offspring of BSE cases and suspects are also removed from the food chain.

If US meat packers are applying the same controls there should be no need for the testing of every animal.

 

[bekosh]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Let us read about MAD COW:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3053

 

[Turin]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

There has been an article about food and the toxics we get in our systems by eating inhaling in National Geographic, a while ago.
The guy who wrote the article ate egg's for breakfast every day and he had teflon in his blood (from the pan he baked in) , he ate fish and the other day he tested again and there was lead in his blood. All in unhealty proportions.

 

[treedancer]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Damn RPJS, after reading your post, the beans are starting to look better and better to me. Organic of course.

 

[bekosh]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

 

[12Footer]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Anybody here against the meat packers not testing there cattle for this hideous disease? This report almost makes me want to go back to being a vegetation

I'll never be a vegitation... I dont like catty-pillars.

My best Homer Simpson immitation;
"Mmmmmmmmm, Mad cow!!! aaaaaaah!"
I like big beef and a cannot lie,
The califlower makes me cry.
I see a burger king and my tires will sing,
I will not let them pass it by.
I could go on, but suffice to say -- I aint a-skeered of no mad cows

 

[RPJS]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Damn RPJS, after reading your post, the beans are starting to look better and better to me. Organic of course.

Statisticly you have more chance of being hit by a meteor while picking organic beens than you do of contracting vCJD if you eat meat which conforms to the control systems in my last post.

 

[CalicoKid]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

The 'feed ban' is a political crock. It states that Mammalian byproducts cannot be fed to ruminants (directly). So Mammalian byproducts are fed to pigs, chickens, etc. The chicken byproducts are in turn fed to ruminants. They're all eating each other.

Having done electrical work at feed mills I have seen some of the crap that is going into animal feed, nasty! It's grass fed beef for me.

 

[CJY]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

The point of this thread, greater testing would be nice. For those of you calling this a scare tactic, or you say we are in need of a reality check.....one question, what do you have against tests being done to a greater percentage of food that crosses out tables?

 

[RPJS]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

The 'feed ban' is a political crock. It states that Mammalian byproducts cannot be fed to ruminants (directly). So Mammalian byproducts are fed to pigs, chickens, etc. The chicken byproducts are in turn fed to ruminants. They're all eating each other.

Having done electrical work at feed mills I have seen some of the crap that is going into animal feed, nasty! It's grass fed beef for me.

Mammalian products cannot be fed to anything.
There is a total ban (in the UK) on animal feed cotaining animal byproducts, there is also a ban on feeding any type of swill.

I wonder what the grass that your beef has been fed on had been sprayed with??

 

[RPJS]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

The point of this thread, greater testing would be nice. For those of you calling this a scare tactic, or you say we are in need of a reality check.....one question, what do you have against tests being done to a greater percentage of food that crosses out tables?

I have nothing against testing.
I just wonder who would start shouting first when the cost of food quadruples.

 

[tommays]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

I do believe that it is pretty much proven fact at this point that cannibal type eating causes health problems in ALL mammals


Something to do with prion diseases

. Which they have found in primatve humans liveing in SA that still eat there friends


Tommays

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

You guys would really freak out if you knew all the things the FDA allows in flour and other grains.

I knew a guy that was real picky on what he ate, where he ate, and how it was made,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the food didn't kill him,,,,,,,,,,,the liquior ate out his liver!

FWIW, that guy with TB is more frightening than the Mad Cow.