The whole story seems incomplete. There may be only 3 cases of CJD in the U.S. but CJD may be only 1 variant of priones disease - and not all proteins fold in every species at the same rate. A walking cow does not indicate its free of BSE. Some have suggested that rise in alzheimers rates in this country may also be connected to priones disease (cf. Mad Sheep). Also its not as though BSE doesn't have counterparts in other animals which aren't part of this ban , like scrapies.
Maybe they could just stop feeding stock offal or at least require offal be cooked, that seems like it would be a more substantive start. If they wish to ban downed cows for the variety of illness's which not being able to walk might represent thats fine, but how does that address how the animal got that way to begin with? Does anybody really still believe feeding
rhuminators sweet feed and grains is going to improve their health or ours? I think if they aren't willing to tackle that, they aren't serious about the food supply , this may just represent some other political or trade agenda.
Not to dodge the original comment, observing them (or a sample of them) in a more sustained way would certainly tell you more about their health. Its funny, the USDA can afford secret police to arrest small time milk sellers, but they can't seem to budget or train anyone to observe an animal.
I'm just not sure the underlying 'best' practices that have been developed are really conducive to healthy animals or healthy food to begin with - even those required by law.
--- On Mon, 3/16/09, Capt.D.C.G.Fox. <cdfox@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
From: Capt.D.C.G.Fox.
<cdfox@optusnet.com.au> Subject: [Livingontheland] Animals fit for slaughter ===RE: Livingontheland Digest, Vol 185, Issue 7 To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org Date: Monday, March 16, 2009, 4:44 PM
The government would have been wiser to have the animals walk for 10 miles 2 days before slaughter and then assessed for fitness for processing, this could bring Animal Concentration Camps to and end. Regards, Douglas.
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Message: 2 Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:51:33 -0700 From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net> Subject: [Livingontheland] Government bans 'downer' cows from food supply To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org Message-ID: <200903141251330390.1D911378@mail.lobo.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Government bans 'downer' cows from food supply March 14, 2009 9:47 a.m.
PT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151ap_mad_cow.html THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- The government on Saturday permanently banned the slaughter of cows too sick or weak to stand on their own, seeking to further minimize the chance that mad cow disease could enter the food supply.
The Agriculture Department proposed the ban last year after the biggest beef recall in U.S. history. The recall involved a Chino, Calif., slaughterhouse and "downer" cows. The Obama administration finalized the ban on Saturday.
"As part of our commitment to public health, our Agriculture Department is closing a loophole in the system to ensure that diseased cows don't find their way into the food supply," President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio and video address.
Those kind of cows pose a higher risk of having mad cow disease. They also susceptible to infections from bacteria that cause food
poisoning, such as E. coli, because the animals wallow in feces.
The recall also raised concerns about the treatment of cattle and came after an investigator for the Humane Society of the United States videotaped workers abusing downer cows to force them to slaughter.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the ban was "a step forward for both food safety and the standards for humane treatment of animals."
The Humane Society's president and chief executive, Wayne Pacelle, said he was pleased that the government "is putting a stop to the inhumane and reckless practice of dragging and otherwise abusing downer cows in order to slaughter them for human consumption."
A partial ban on downer cows was in place; it resulted from the nation's first case of mad cow disease, in 2003.
But there was a loophole. If a cow collapsed after passing inspection, government inspectors allowed the animal into
the food supply if it had an acute injury, such as a broken leg, but showed no signs of central nervous disorder that might indicate the presence of mad cow disease.
Obama called the country's food inspection system "a hazard to public health," citing outbreaks of deadly food poisoning in peanuts this year, peppers and possibly tomatoes last year and spinach in 2006.
He named his candidates for the top jobs at the Food and Drug Administration, which together with the Agriculture Department is responsible for much of the government's food inspection.
Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In people, eating meat contaminated with BSE is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare and deadly nerve disease. A massive outbreak of mad cow disease in the United Kingdom that peaked in 1993 was blamed for the deaths of 180,000 cattle and more than 150
people.
There have been three confirmed cases of BSE in the United states, in a Canadian-born cow in 2003 in Washington state, in 2005 in Texas and in 2006 in Alabama. The Bush administration in 2006 dramatically scaled back testing for mad cow disease.
No illnesses have been linked to those cows in the United States. There have been three cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease confirmed in people living in the United States, but those were linked to meat products in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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