Homestead mailing list

[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Rob wrote:

> At  11/18/2004 09:41 AM, you wrote:
>
> > An employee of Chris's company in Texas is almost certainly the 
> > victim of mad cow disease. I was not going to write about it because 
> > I don't care to be an alarmist.
>
>
> Alarm away. I have been trying to find the article where the USDA 
> refuses to allow a cattle company to test all it's cattle for mad cow 
> (so they can export to Japan).
> There is only one reason I can think of why the USDA would not allow 
> testing it's the economic impact if it was found to be widespread.
>
>
>
> Rob
>
> becidawa AT hctc.com
> Now in western Washington, USA

tvoivozhd---good news from Japan on results of their research in 
rendering Mad Cow innocuous in people---bad news from our Vicious 
Veneman who wants to sweep any and all Mad Cow evidence under the 
rug---what you don't know won't hurt you, or the Japanese either.



Last Update: Tuesday, September 21, 2004. 11:51am (AEST)
New research may help fight mad cow disease

New research may help fight mad cow disease. (ABC TV)
  
Japanese discovery may help combat mad cow disease

A group of Japanese researchers claim they have discovered a 
protein-unfolding factor that they hope will be used to combat mad cow 
disease and other protein-caused malignant diseases.

The discovery of the factor named Unfoldin was made by a group led by 
Naomi Hachiya with the National Institute of Neuroscience in Kodaira.

Unfoldin unfolds abnormal prion protein, the chief cause of mad cow 
disease, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which has been 
linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the researchers said.

The protein-unfolding factor is expected to be used to tackle those 
diseases as the abnormal structure of prions, once unfolded, will be 
resolved by enzymes in the body.

The researchers said the scissor-like factor they found in yeast cells 
also unfolds and makes corded other types of protein that cause 
Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

It is the first time for a factor that can unfold any type of protein 
structure to be discovered, they said.

Kazuo Kuwata, who heads the Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases at 
Gifu University, said the discovery has tremendous application potential.

There has never been a reported case of mad cow disease in Australia.

--Kyodo




-------------------


         April 10, 2004


   U.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad Cow

*By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.*

he Department of Agriculture refused yesterday to allow a Kansas beef
producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such
sweeping tests were not scientifically warranted.

The producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to use recently
approved rapid tests so it could resume selling its fat-marbled black
Angus beef to Japan, which banned American beef after a cow slaughtered
in Washington State last December tested positive for mad cow. The
company has complained that the ban is costing it $40,000 a day and
forced it to lay off 50 employees.

The department's under secretary for marketing and regulation, Bill
Hawks, said in a statement yesterday that the rapid tests, which are
used in Japan and Europe, were licensed for surveillance of animal
health, while Creekstone's use would have "implied a consumer safety
aspect that is not scientifically warranted."

Lobbying groups for cattle ranchers and slaughterhouses applauded the
decision, but consumer advocates denounced it, saying the department was
preventing Creekstone from taking extra steps to prove its product was safe.

Under the Virus Serum Toxin Act of 1913, the department decides where
cattle can be tested and for what.

Consumer groups accused the department of bending to the will of the
beef lobby, saying producers do not want the expense of proving that all
cattle are safe or the damage to meat sales that would result if more
cases of mad cow are found.

Creekstone said it was extremely disappointed and frustrated that the
department had taken six weeks to decide and added that it might go to
court to fight the decision.

Since December, Japan has demanded that producers who want to export
there test each animal, as Japanese ranchers do. The American beef
industry and the Bush administration have resisted, and negotiations
have become increasingly tense.

Consumer groups were critical of the department's decision.

"It is ironic in the extreme that an administration that's so interested
in letting industry come up with its own solutions would come down with
a heavy government hand on a company that's being creative," said Dr.
Peter Lurie, deputy director of the health research group at Public
Citizen, a frequent food industry critic.

Dr. Lurie said, however, the Japanese demand for 100 percent testing was
irrational because it included animals younger than 20 months. "But
there is no shortage of irrational consumer demands ? like cosmetic
surgery or S.U.V's ? that industry is only too happy to cater to," he
said. "That's what capitalism does."

Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, another group
often critical of the industry, said: "We're the ones who've been
irrational on mad cow because of the foot-dragging and refusals to test,
our head-in-the-sand attitude. And now that it's brought us to a crisis,
American farmers have no way of protecting their market."

A spokesman for the Agriculture Department, Ed Lloyd, defended
yesterday's decision, saying, "We're working very diligently to
re-establish our markets."

The department recently changed its testing regimen to make a one-time
effort, beginning in June, to test 201,000 cows with symptoms of nervous
disease or that are too sick or injured to walk, and 20,000 healthy
older ones. The regimen assumes that cattle born before 1997, when a ban
was imposed on feeding bovine tissue to cattle, are most at risk.

The president of the American Meat Institute, which represents
slaughterhouses, and the director of regulatory affairs at the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents ranchers, praised the
decision.

Gary Weber of the cattlemen's association called 100 percent testing
misleading to consumers because it would create a false impression that
untested beef was not safe. He compared it to demanding that all cars be
crash tested to prove they are safe.

Asked if American beef producers were content to give up the $1.5
billion Japanese market, Mr. Weber said: "We're not going to give in to
their demands. If that means in the short-to-medium term that we don't
have that market, that's the price we'll pay. But in the long run, it
means there's testing that's science based and that creates a level
playing field."

Asked if beef producers did not want to be pressured to imitate
Creekstone and pay for more tests, Mr. Weber said it was "absolutely not
about the money."