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-- Dirty Canadian Cows
Dirty Canadian Cows
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/27/mad.cow/index.html
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| WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Holstein diagnosed with mad cow disease in Washington state may have entered the United States from the Canadian province of Alberta in 2001 with 73 other cows, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Saturday. Dr. Ron DeHaven, the USDA's chief of veterinary medicine, said Canadian records show the herd would have entered the United States at Eastport, Idaho. He said investigators have matched an ear tag retrieved from the sick cow at the slaughterhouse to records from a Canadian cow. Dr. Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said there is a discrepancy between the Canadians and the Americans versions of the cow's age. "We do not have a definitive diagnosis of this particular animal," Evans said in a conference call with reporters. U.S. investigators believe the sick cow was two years old and had borne three calves, one of which died. Canadian records show that the cow there was born in 1997, making it at least six years old, and had borne two calves. In Canada's first mad cow case in a decade, an eight-year-old cow was tested and killed in January after showing signs of illness. Tests in England confirmed signs of mad cow disease. DeHaven said investigators are uncertain whether they have located the birth herd, which would allow them to test other animals. The tests for mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), cannot be done on a live animal. "These animals were all dairy cattle and entered the U.S. only about two or two-and-a-half years ago, so most of them are still likely alive," DeHaven said. He emphasized that just because the sick cow was a member of the herd, it does not mean the other 73 animals were infected -- but it may not have shown up. The brain-wasting mad cow disease is usually transmitted through contaminated feed and has an incubation period of four to five years. Mad cow disease is linked to a similar form of the incurable and fatal brain-wasting disease in humans, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD. There have been a small number of cases of vCJD reported worldwide, primarily in the United Kingdom, in people who ate BSE-contaminated meat. At least 100 people have died of vCJD, and outbreaks of BSE have led to large declines in beef consumption. Mad cow disease first appeared in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s and millions of cattle were slaughtered. BSE spread across the European cattle industry, but the first case in North America did not appear until the Canadian case in May this year. Eighteen farms were quarantined, but no additional cases were discovered. Many nations have banned beef imports from the United States, including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Mexico and China. |
this reminds me of the New York blackout that was blamed on Canada... when in fact it was a faulty transmission lines in Ohio...
but i digress from the topic at hand...
thats right!! we don't need no steenkin' army, we poison you American fools. 
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| Originally posted by Dopey thats right!! we don't need no steenkin' army, we poison you American fools. |
Whether the cow was from Canada or not really won't make one difference now because it was already here. So much trade takes place between our two nations that it would not be unlikely that this could have happened, it could have easily been the other way around. Short of closing the border completely to trade, I don't see what can be done. The U.S. and Canada need to work together to get to the bottom of this and ensure that not one more case of BSE occurs. I think that I will take a break from beef for a while. As unlikely as me getting BSE might be, until the full details are known I will remain weary about what is going on.
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| Originally posted by razmataz this reminds me of the New York blackout that was blamed on Canada... when in fact it was a faulty transmission lines in Ohio... but i digress from the topic at hand... |
Screw waiting, I blame the French Canadians
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| Originally posted by Yoepus Screw waiting, I blame the French Canadians |
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| Originally posted by PHALPAX Theres no Canada like French Canada |
.
The blame game is quite humorous. It's like dealing with five year olds when asking "who dropped the milk on the floor"!
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| Originally posted by NYCTrancefan Had the fortune to go out with one who attended my university an hour away from Canada, close to the New York - Montreal border. They aren't that bad as long as you speak French . |
*sigh*...the French....
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| Originally posted by Yoepus Screw waiting, I blame the French Canadians |
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| Originally posted by anuneventrade The blame game is quite humorous. It's like dealing with five year olds when asking "who dropped the milk on the floor"! |
heh some one said it may have been a terrorist attack 
my mspaint image of this idea
so syria is next right?
What I Learned Today About Mad Cow Disease
a.k.a BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)
I'm beginning to think that these FDA people don't completely know what they're talking about/dealing with, but here is what I have learned through today about BSE.
BSE was a major problem in the U.K. in the late 80's/early 90's.
Cattle that become infected usually do so by eating feedstock that has been manufactured with used cow parts(i.e. old cow carcasses). The infectous part of the cow is the brain and spinal cord--i.e. there are cow brains and some spinal cords in cow feed(aren't these creatures herbivores?? ah, that's another topic).
Humans can supposedly only get the disease by eating the infected part of the cow--they have to actually ingest part of a cow's brain or spinal cord(sounds like an episode of Fear Factor the contestants ate boiled horse rectum but I digress). Apparently when they slaughter cattle, sometimes some bits & pieces of the infected cow can get in the meat (Can anyone clarify if this includes a T-bone?). Anyway, it would seem that it is relatively difficult to contract the disease, but Mad Cow tends to put the fear of God into people and a few rare cases could instill panic in a large amount of people in a short amount of time. The story does get more interesting though.
Cows in the U.S. aren't tracked as rigorously as in other countries since they're so heavily traded as a commodity, and as a result it can be particularly difficult to trace a cow through it's lifetime from birth to slaughter, making it much more difficult to track the offspring of a potentially infected mother among other things(perhaps we've found a new darkside to Capitalism, but again, I digress).
Another point of note. in 1997 there was established, a regulation, that outlawed the use of other cows in feedstock for cows (the herbivores--the irony is killing me). This is getting curious.
Another point of note. The sole cow so far in the U.S. to be reported with BSE is a Holstein cow, that is she's a dairy cow, used for milk, so there's not a direct connection to the meat supply, and there has been no evidence of milk-based disease transmission(but still scary).
Anyway, don't dispair, there is a test available that can be administered to cows to test for the disease (actually, I believe there are 2). These tests cost a farmer about $15 apiece and although there is no cure for BSE so the cows would just be slaughtered and taken out of circulation. Great, then what? Are they gonna throw them back in the feedstock? damn, already blew that option. Are they gonna just incenerate them and then have the skies raining Mad Cow ashes on the world and turning people into Zombies? Somebody get my therapist and a conspiracy theorist!
Oh, but wait, there's a rub or two. First, the incubation period of the disease in the animal...it's about 4-6 years. Animals can't be tested until they're at least 30 months in age (2.5 years if you have an MBA). This is why in Europe cows under 30 months are not tested.
And the up-shot: In the U.S. cows are usually slaughtered when they are under 20 months of age. In fact, only 12% of U.S. cattle are slaughtered over 20 months. How much is 12%? 12% is a lot of cows. 36 million cows to be semi-precise. That leaves an approximate addressable market of about 4-6 million cows available for testing (That's a lot of could be mad cows).
Then the FDA comes out today and says the specific cow in questionwas born in April of 1997--80 months mind you--yes, the same year that the "no more feeding herbivores more herbivores" rule went into effect. Ah, but let's complicate things a bit. I believe they said the infected cow came from Canada. My this story is interesting--I thought our tracking practices in the U.S. were supposed to be bad to non-existent? How is that the case, yet we can supposedly trace a statistically old cow back to birth? In another country of origin, no less? I'm beginning to think someone is blowing smoke up someone elses' ass to buy more time here.
My question is could this disease manifest itself anymore slowly??? This sounds like a lot of BS to me. I mean 4-6 years of infection before cows are symptomatic. Not exactly the Grand Canyon, but not exactly a small window of possibility either! Leave it to those rascally U.S. commodities traders to try to beat the disease to the death punch by killing them before the disease can get to them.
This cow was born in April of '97. She couldn't have been eating other cows for long, yet it took her 6 years to be symptomatic? (rethinking the Grand Canyon comment) Is an asymptomatic infected cow as infectuous to humans as a symptomatic infected cow? If she's a milk cow, why did she eat need to eat feedstock that was made with other cow parts? What ever happened to hay? Why are cows being fed to other cows?? PETA should have the field day of a lifetime with this one.
Conclusion: I need to get my cholesterol down, I can avoid beef for a while. I'll keep an umbrella handy just in case; you never know what may happen 28 Days Later.
Mmmmm yes noboody eat meat ... more for me. Anyway to answer your questions as to how they were able to track it, they can perform DNA tests to identify the originating herd, and additionally, apparentely they can also simply look at the ear tag, duh, to find out where the cow came from:
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DeHaven said investigators hope to use the stricken cow's DNA samples to confirm their preliminary determination that the animal entered the United States from the Canadian province of Alberta in 2001 with a herd of 81 cows. Testing also will trace the history of those other cows. Earlier officials said 73 cows from the herd were being traced. Investigators have matched the cow's ear tag to a Canadian herd, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it was unclear that the cow was the same one that became sick, or even that the infected animal had come from Canada. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/12/29/mad.cow/index.html |
actually i think the DNA test has NOT COME BACK YET. so they dont know for sure.
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| Originally posted by Shakka What I Learned Today About Mad Cow Disease a.k.a BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis) I believe they said the infected cow came from Canada. My this story is interesting--I thought our tracking practices in the U.S. were supposed to be bad to non-existent? How is that the case, yet we can supposedly trace a statistically old cow back to birth? In another country of origin? I'm beginning to think someone is blowing smoke up someone elses' ass to buy more time here. |
There was like 31-32 nations that immediately banned the import of US beef after one of our cows had the Mad Cow disease, except Canada of course which already has a history of infecting themselves and others.
Well, we can say screw them, ban the export of all friggin' food to those countries, and approve the export of friggin' bombs to them instead!
{{{smoke}}}
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| Originally posted by smokeape There was like 31-32 nations that immediately banned the import of US beef after one of our cows had the Mad Cow disease, except Canada of course which already has a history of infecting themselves and others. Well, we can say screw them, ban the export of all friggin' food to those countries, and approve the export of friggin' bombs to them instead! {{{smoke}}} |
oh artic, lighten up and take a bad joke.
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| Originally posted by Yoepus oh artic, lighten up and take a bad joke. |
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