MAD COW DISEASE!!

[LordKathen]

This is to close to home! Mabton is about 40 miles from Tri-Cities. Crazy!
Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/24/mad.cow/index.html

[Stratos]

They haven't got back the test results yet, but I've heard that it's a probable case. Not exactly what the US economy needs right now.

Let's just hope it hasn't spread to other farms yet.

[LordKathen]

It is now...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...&u=/ap/mad_cow

[Azimaith]

When are they going to completely ban using waste as feed. Its disgusting, its unnatural, and its unsafe, all it does is promote diseases like mad cow. I mean hell, its a freaking prion, theres no way to treat it but to prevent it. Ban the use of slaughterhouse waste as food already jeez. How many more people need to die because of selfish, greedy companies.

Just a point of accuracy. Companies are neither greedy nor selfish. A company is just a legal construct. It is people that are greedy and selfish.
And I agree with Az.

On the other hand, at this point there is no evidence that we have a serious problem....one cow with the herd to be destroyed. I think it says a lot that it was detected while only one cow was manifesting symptoms. I have heard that the only way to contract this disease is to eat specific tissues, none of which consists of the noraml muscle tissue used for human consumption...is this accurate?

I have also heard that the total number of human cases was anywhere from 100 to 10,000 total.....more people drown in their bath tubs each year so this doesn't sound as lethal as the media seems to have hyped it to be.

I know Pritchke is predicting that the Market is going to crash......we will see. I predict it takes a hit and then keeps on climbing...beef is not even close to being the only commodity sold.


All in all just another example of how people jump to trumpet bad news and ignore the good...say like all the acts of Christian and Other denominations of Charity that are taking place this Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa season.

[ 12-25-2003, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by MagiK: Just a point of accuracy. Companies are neither greedy nor selfish. A company is just a legal construct. It is people that are greedy and selfish. And I agree with Az. On the other hand, at this point there is no evidence that we have a serious problem....one cow with the herd to be destroyed. I think it says a lot that it was detected while only one cow was manifesting symptoms. I have heard that the only way to contract this disease is to eat specific tissues, none of which consists of the noraml muscle tissue used for human consumption...is this accurate? I have also heard that the total number of human cases was anywhere from 100 to 10,000 total.....more people drown in their bath tubs each year so this doesn't sound as lethal as the media seems to have hyped it to be. I know Pritchke is predicting that the Market is going to crash......we will see. I predict it takes a hit and then keeps on climbing...beef is not even close to being the only commodity sold. All in all just another example of how people jump to trumpet bad news and ignore the good...say like all the acts of Christian and Other denominations of Charity that are taking place this Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa season.

Maybe not the total market, but, 14 or more nations has cut off import of beef. That is a huge impact on the market, let alone the impact on Washington State. Like I said before, I live a 1/2 hour drive from where the cow was. I am not scared of getting sick, but this is going to hurt our economy, I garantee.

[Azimaith]

The big difference between drowning in your bathtub and dying from mad cow disease is this.

When you drown in your bathtub, its not because people took shortcuts to cut costs such as, I dunno, making your faucet out of cardboard causing it to overflow and drown you.

However, with mad cow disease, in order to cut feed costs, they grind up slaughterhouse waste and feed it to cows, which is because they took shortcuts, broke the natural order, and essentially, tried to cut costs by doing something that is known to cause a deadly disease.

And by the way, nerves are what get you mad cow disease, the problem is, all the muscle in the entire body is filled with nerve cells. Its because prions exist in nerve cells and essentially destroy them.

Also note that mad cow disease symptoms don't manifest for 10 years or so after you ingested the prions. It takes a long time for the neural damage to become deadly enough to manifest physically.

No, mad cow disease is not an epidemic, yet lead is banned from paints because it can cause all sorts of problems, asbestos with serpentine is nearly unproduced because of cancer, and all ham is federally mandated to reach a certain temperature before its considered "ready to eat" to kill Trich.

This is just as important as banning the use of slaughterhouse waste so they can just cut down on costs. Its not only hurting people, its hurting the entire beef industry and most people can agree, having cows cannabilize their dead for a couple of bucks is just plain disgusting.

[Djinn Raffo]

As a Canadian whose nation recently, and still is, going through a similar crisis, I empathize with you.

[Timber Loftis]

Yeah, interesting Canada is not one of the countries.

If it takes $2 Billion worth of threatened lost exports to get the industry to change, and the ADA to quit being a yes-agency, maybe some good will come of the ban.

Or, maybe the US will just sue in the WTO. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

[Larry_OHF]

I have not seen anyone start talking on the subject in the manner that I have been waiting to see, so I guess I have to start it.

I have read some information that seems to have disappeared in the new updates that all these news sites have. I am having trouble finding my sources now, but that may be from staying up all night with Karen trying to make the baby happy in her new home. [img]graemlins/yawn.gif[/img]

The article said that it had been considered by the "big guys" in Washington to place a ban on any cow being used for food if that cow was called a "downer". A downer was what they termed any cow that could not walk itself to the slaughter. The bill was not passed. Still, the people that work in those areas seem to keep records of who the downers are. At least that much is being done.

Another problem is where the government is trying to assure people that you cannot get sick from the muscles...that only the brain and spinal column, including the nerves are infectuous. But there is one scientist in this country trying to warn people of the danger of making that assumption and he is also saying that every cow could be tested before killing that would only increase the cost of beef a few cents. He swears that there are safer ways to go about doing things that the other countries have already discovered who have suffered similar problems,,,but of course our government swears it is unnecessary and will not consider this one man's views.

Well, I think the guy is right. If another country has found a better way to deal with this problem...we need to learn it. If there is one man in the US that is using his research to prove that the disease or a variant of the disease is possibly in the muscles...then we should give him time to talk, and consider his words instead of full-out ignoring his ideas.

I mean come on...we had to send the brain and spinal cord to Europe to be tested for confirmation of the disease...why the hell do we not have the capability here? Because our govt. thinks we are the best and smartest at everything already, with no room to learn.

By the way...just to stress my point with a good example. And I hope everybody has read down this far...Only a few years ago did America consider it safe to trim off any mold that might be on a stick of cheese and eat the unmolded part...that it was safe. Within the last few years, nutritionalists are now learning in the classroom that if the cheese is bad enough to have mold on any part of the block...the whole thing should be thrown out. The whole piece is molded and the part you see is just where the mold is highly consentrated. People to this day still do not know this, as my wife had to teach it to a group of ladies at a Pampered Chef party she was invited to attend, and the hostess was using cheese that had a spec of mold on it, and thought it was safe to use the apparently unmolded part in a cooking example of her product.

In other words, what has been proven safe in today's society may be proven hazardous in tomorrow's, when somebody discovers it. Will we listen?