Mad Cow Disease Found in Vermont Sheep
The Agriculture Dept. on Friday ordered 376 imported sheep to be destroyed after tests showed they might be infected with a sheep equivalent of mad cow disease.
Tests of 4 slaughtered sheep found evidence of a version of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for the always fatal mad cow disease, officials said.
The tests mean the animals could have had the same disease that killed 53 people and devasted the beef industry in Britain in 1995.
"Even the remotest possibility that it could be that, I think that we have to take all precautions," said Linda Detwiler, the department's senior staff veterinarian.
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Los Angeles Times, 7-15-2000
British Town's 'Mad Cow' Deaths Prompt Inquiry
British health officials said Friday that they are investigating a cluster of deaths resulting from the human form of 'mad cow' disease around a small town in central England.
4 people who lived in or near the village of Queniborough, in Leicestershire county, have died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, in the last 2 years, and a fifth is believed to have contracted the illness, the government revealed.
Medical authorities said such a cluster is rare and they hope the inveswtigation will shed light on the transmission of the disease. They told villagers not to worry, but they were unable to say whether the outbreak signaled more cases to come.
The victims are believed to have contracted the disease from eating infected meat more than a decade ago, before strict controls were imposed on cattle feed and beef sales, according to health officials.
The incubation period for CJD can be as long as 15 years, and new cases are on the rise in Britain, with 12 registered since January, compared with 13 in all of 1999.
CJD is a fatal brain disorder caused by an abnormal protein called a prion. It is rare, hitting only 1 in a million people each year. There is no known cure.
An outbreak of a related disorder--bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease--devasted Britain's cattle industry druing the late l990s. Researchers believe BSE can be transmitted to humans.... (--end of article.)
Brothers and sisters, our "early warning system" (the Spirit of Prophecy), warned us over 100 years ago that "disease in cattle is making meat eating a dangerous matter. The Lord's curse is upon the earth, upon man, upon beasts, upon the fish in the sea; and as transgression becomes almost universal, the curse will be permitted to become as broad and as deep as the transgression. Disease is contracted by the use of meat. The diseased flesh of these dead carcasses is sold in the market places, and disease among man is the sure result.
" There is no safety in the eating of the flesh of dead animals, and in a short time the milk of cows will also be excluded from the diet of God's commandment-keeping people. In a short time it will not be safe to use anything that comes from the animal creation." --Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 411.
Sr. Suzanne
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 07-16-2000).]
Avalee
I will try to find where I read it, I have printed it along with all my other stuff on bio-genetic foods folder.
Oh, by the way, I wrote a letter to Elder Cavaness, the president of the Southern California conference about Kellogg and their buyout of Worthington products and the e-mails I got from them that said they are going to continue using bio-genetic soybeans and corn products. In my letter I asked for Elder Cavaness to spread the word to the church body here in Southern California so that our church memebers could have an informed buying knowledge.
I was told that he put my letter in his monthly newsletter to the pastors in the region to inform the church people about the buyout of Kellogg of Worthington Products and the bio-genetic processing of our foods. I was amazed. People need to be aware of what is going on around them, whether they have a problem or not about bio-genetic altering of foods, but they at least need to have labeling of the products as such and with what so they can make an informed choice.
Linda
When symptoms of CJD became evident in my first wife, I attended some of the Alzheimer support group meetings, but I gave that up when I realized that the rapid deterioration of my wife's condition was making other care givers feel worse.
Bob Lee
They stated it was because of his being in G.B. during the Mad Cow outbreak.
I didn't know the incubation period of this infection.
I hope there is some way of testing for it, and will be e-mailing this page site to them.
------------------
Abstain from ALL appearence of evil. 1Thess.5:22
Gerry B.
QUOTE_____________
How Is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Diagnosed?
A diagnosis of CJD should be considered when an adult patient develops a rapid dementia and myoclonus [uncontrolled jerking and spasms of the body]. Unfortunately, confirming a diagnosis of CJD has historically been difficult as traditional laboratory tests have been ineffective in detecting CJD. The disease does not induce a fever or other systemic manifestations. The cerebrospinal fluid most often appears normal, except for an occasional elevation in the protein content. Magnetic resonance imaging ("MRI"), position emission tomography ("PET"), and x-rays have not been helpful in diagnosing CJD. A computed tomography ("CT") brain scan is usually normal, but may show some atrophy, a nondiagnostic finding seen in many other neurological conditions. The most helpful test has been the electroencephalogram ("EEG"), which measures brain wave activity. The EEG often shows a characteristic abnormal pattern, typically observed in later stages of the disease, but the EEG does not confirm a CJD diagnosis.
Accordingly, a definitive diagnosis of CJD has traditionally required a brain biopsy or autopsy which can detect the characteristic changes in the brain tissue caused by the disease. Moreover, a brain biopsy may sometimes produce a false-negative result if the biopsied area was unaffected by the disease. At the present time, however, a new test is being developed to diagnose CJD by examining the cerebrospinal fluid. Additional tests proposed to confirm a diagnosis of CJD include identifying the presence of the deadly prion protein, identifying the prion gene mutation, and transmitting the disease from the human patient to animals.
The difficulties involved in diagnosing CJD may have prevented the indentificaton of the disease in some cases. Because brain biopsy for diagnosing CJD is invasive, costly and risky, it is often not performed. Additionally, some physicians may not even consider the possibility of a CJD diagnosis since the disease is deemed to be rare and the clinical symptoms of CJD can often be attributed to other ailments. Consequently, CJD may be mistaken for a variety of psychological illnesses and other neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease, Pick's Disease, Huntington's Disease, cerebral hematomas and vascular irregularities. The extent to which such misdiagnosis may have occurred is presently unknown.
END QUOTE_______________
There is specutation that there is probably a significantly higher rate of CJD in the USA that previously thought, because it is so difficult to diagnose and many physicians are not familiar with it.
Linda
.....Joan.......
(I have Satelitte receiver. 25 German, 23 English, 15 other channels. I still am glued to the History and Discovery English channel)
I do know how to select from the tvguide and am very strict in consume and control of what I see. Alfie never ever watches Tv. He doesn't read newspapers,magazines or listen to radio. He expects me to keep him updated to what's important. Otherwise he is a nature boy and can't be bothered with world problems.
In this one hour interview we brought to light the situation with Mad Cow disease and the danger posed to humans from eating the flesh of animals and any other animal product including milk. We were happy to have gone on record prior to the government's acknowledgment of the animal to human transmission.
Jesus loves us and has given us great light. How many are rejecting this light and to what consequence? How many in the world are going unwarned because we have not done that which it has been our responsibility and privilege to do?
We have a wonderful opportunity to reach the lost with the message of God's love. The medical missionary work is the right arm that will open the door for the reception of the gospel. Can we not see the great opportunity that exists? Where are the workers? Why are there so few? Most Seventh-day Adventist physicians have joined with the world and are partaking of the flesh pots of Egypt. Most, if not all of our hospitals are feeding animal products to their patients.
There are many physicians and others that are holding the banner high. Shall we not join with them in giving this light to the world? I don't see how God could make it any plainer. If many Seventh-day Adventists continue to ignore the counsels given and continue to consume animal products, they will not give the third angel's message and they will reap the consequences of eating cancer and other such diseases, they and their children.
Let us walk in the light as He is in the light and we will receive the blessings He desires to impart.
In His love and grace, Richard
Germany, Portugal's Azores Islands, Spain, and France have each recorded new cases of mad cow disease. Authorities in Switzerland have halted the import of all breeding cattle; Greece announced a ban on T-bone steaks from France, following similar bans by Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Russia and the Czech Republic. Indeed, sales of beef have dropped throughout the 15-nation European Union as fear spreads about this disease. Scientists believe eating infected meat can cause a similar ailment in humans, the usually fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
Nowhere is the phobia over red meat or other suspect foods as acute as in France, where 125 instances of mad cow disease have been detected this year. This crisis has joined that country's concern about hormone-fed cattle and genetically engineered crops such as corn and soybeans, imported from the United States.
The mad cow crisis and other highly publicized products recalls and hygiene scandals has shaken the confidence of the French in their own agribusiness sector, which is second only to that of the U.S. as an exporter of food. In the Dordogne region in southwestern France, 23 tons of rotten duck meat were seized by inspectors. In another town, a producer recalled 2 tons of a beef- and lamb-based sausage, after detecting strains of listeria, a potentially deadly bacteria.
Last year it was revealed that some French farmers were purchasing processed human waste from water-treatment plants to feed their pigs, fish and poultry....
One Frenchman pointed out that "...Even in restaurants, I don't eat meat anymore...Already, we all were dying of cancer, so why make things worse?"
The spinal cord of cattle, believed to be one means of transmission of mad cow disease, now must be removed by law at the slaughterhouse. That's another delicacy gone: known as amourette, the rubbery white spinal cord of calves, served pan-fried, is thought by some to enhance one's lovemaking powers.
...For French politicians, mad cow disease and the other food scares could have fateful consequence. In neighboring Belgium, a scandal last year over the use of dioxin-contaiminated feed for chickens led to consumer panic, followed by outrage at an official cover-up and an election that threw out the government.
France has imposed a moratorium on the use of feed enriched with bone marrow, offal and other slaughterhouse waste. Such fodder is thought to be the origin of the mid-1990s outbreak of the disease in Britain. The malady is believed to be a mutation of an ailment that affected sheep, and scientists hypothesize that it spread to cattle when the meat and bone of diseased animals were ground up and used to enrich feed.
The British destroyed 4.5 million head of cattle in an attempt to stem the spread of the disease, but they have still registered over 1,000 new cases this year. Other Europeans believed the risk to them was over when the EU outlawed exports of British beef and feed in 1996. But the subsequent testing on the Continent revealed scores of infected animals, whose owners may have given them tainted feed before the ban.
In a bid to snuff out mad cow disease once and for all, agriculture ministers of European Union nations agreed last week to a 6-month moratorium on feeding meat and bone meal to livestock and poultry, and also to the destruction of all cattle over 30 months old being sold for meat unless the animals have been found to be healthy. The extraordinary measures could cost the taxpayers of the 15 countries up to $3.5 billion.
The French are experiencing the downside of decades of industrialization and concentration in agriculture and the food business, according to some. Supermarket chains squeezed out independent butchers by cutting costs, even if that meant turning grass-eating cattle into cannibals by giving them feed enriched with the remains of other cows and bulls.
"They started to produce meat like they produce cars--it's not natural," an Orleans butcher said. "If God doesn't hold us back, what do we do next, give iron bars to livestock to eat?" --adapted from the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11, 2000.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 12-14-2000).]
The facts are clear. Thanks for posting this. This is no time for our people to be feeding meat to their families.
Sincerely
Dugald
FDA WARNS MAKERS OF LIVESTOCK FEED
Hundreds of animal feed producers are violating rules intended to keep mad cow disease out of the United States, prompting the government to warn that companies must shape up or expect shutdowns, even prosecution.
The food supply remains safe despite the violations because no cases of mad cow disease have been found in U.S. cattle, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The livestock industry in 1996 voluntarily banned sheep and certain other animal parts from U.S. feed. The next year, the FDA formally banned any proteins from cows, sheep, goats, deer or elk--animals that get similar brain-wasting diseases--from feed for cows, sheep or goats. Poultry and pigs can still eat those proteins, but feed must be labeled "do not feed to cows or other ruminants" and companies must have systems to prevent mixing up the feeds.
Yet FDA inspections found hundreds of renderers and feed mills that handle risky feed lacked warning labels and/or had no system to prevent feed mixups. --end of article.
Unfortunely, it seems to be just a matter of time before the mad cow epidemic affects this country. It is obvious that we cannot trust the cattle barons, meat producers, etc. to comply with FDA rules banning the feeding of animals remains to cattle, and other livestock. These are the very products that caused the epidemic in the first place. Yes, it is grossly unnatural and dangerous to feed blood and other animal parts to herbivores (cattle, sheep, etc.) Can the flesh of such animals, forced to eat like scavengers, be called "clean meat?" Hardly! We are what we eat holds true even in the animal kingdom. Garbage in; garabage out!
"We cannot now do as we have ventured to do in the past in regard to meat eating. It has always been a curse to the human family, but now it is made particularly so in the curse which God has pronounced upon the herds of the field, because of man's transgression and sin. The disease upon animals is becoming more and more common, and our only safely now is in leaving meat entirely alone. The most aggravated diseases are now prevalent,...It is in eating meat so largely in this country that men and women are becoming demoralized, their blood corrupted, and disease planted in the system. Because of meat eating, many die, and they do not understand the cause. If the truth were known, it would bear testimony it was the flesh of animals that have passed through death. The thought of feeding on dead flesh is repulsive, but there is something besides this. In eating meat we partake of diseased dead flesh, and this sows its seed of corruption in the human organism...." --Ellen White, "Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 412.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 01-14-2001).]
Monday December 18 5:47 PM ET
Elk Slaughtered to Halt Mad Cow-Like Disease
By Jeffrey Jones
CALGARY (Reuters) - About 1,500 domesticated elk on ranches in western Canada have been slaughtered to stop the spread of an illness closely related to the mad cow disease afflicting livestock in Europe, officials said on Monday.
The elk, from half a dozen farms in the province of Saskatchewan, were killed over the past six months after 14 were found to be infected with the debilitating illness called chronic wasting disease. It has been dubbed ``mad elk'' disease.
The outbreak of the disease, for which there is no cure, is believed to have originated with one elk imported to a Saskatchewan farm from South Dakota several years ago, said Brian Peart, senior staff veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which ordered the slaughter.
``It stayed pretty much on that farm until probably 1995, and all the animals that we have found so far have come from that source farm,'' Peart said.
There have been no cases of the protein-borne illness reported outside Saskatchewan, he said.
Chronic wasting disease is related to mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the brain-wasting illness that has hit the European livestock industry. Both are spread by prions, mysterious proteins that attack part of the animal's brain by killing cells.
Symptoms in elk include the inability to swallow properly, which can result in food being lodged in the lungs, as well as disorientation and severe weight loss. Eventually, they die of starvation.
Canada's first reported case of chronic wasting disease was in 1974, when a mule deer at Toronto's zoo was diagnosed.
The affliction is only believed to affect domesticated elk and deer, and Peart said no cases have been found in the wild. There is no evidence of a human form of the disease. The fatal human form of mad cow is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Elk ranching is a burgeoning industry in Canada, generating annual revenues of more than C$1 billion ($660 million). Elk are raised for their venison, a substitute for beef.
They are also prized for the velvet on young antlers, which is used in herbal remedies around the world, especially Asia, where derivatives have been used as aphrodisiacs for centuries.
There are about 54,000 domesticated elk across Canada, nearly 40 percent of them in Saskatchewan.
Game farmers are to get about C$4,000 per elk slaughtered under the program -- about half their value. But industry officials said they agreed with the mass killing, despite the financial hit.
``If we did not take care of this, the impact would be much greater,'' Serge Buy, executive director of the Canadian Cervid Council, the industry's umbrella group, told Reuters. ``The industry is responsible. We've had an issue, we've dealt with the issue and the issue has been solved. The animals are dead now.''
In Germany on Monday, officials found a second cow in two weeks infected with the brain-wasting mad cow disease, and said they feared more cases would be detected. Mad cow disease, first detected in England in the mid-1990s, has spread to other countries in Europe, including France and Spain.
Peart said government agencies and farming groups were stepping up efforts to eradicate the elk disease in Canada.
``A regulation is currently going through the process to make chronic wasting disease a reportable disease, and producers are expected to notify both their own practicing veterinarian and their federal veterinarian if an animal has the signs,'' he said.
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Riverside, Calif. "Press-Enterprise," Dec. 12, 2000
Thailand's Food and Drug Administration has imposed a ban on imports of beef from 7 European nations to prevent the spread of mad cow disease. This country has blocked imports of British beef since 1996 when the epidemic started. The additional countries from which beef imports are now banned are Portugal, France, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.
Los Angeles Times, Jan. 10, 2001:
2 German Ministers Are Forced to Resign Over 'Mad Cow' Crisis
Berlin--Germany's "mad cow" crisis felled its first victims Tuesday, as Health Minister Andrea Fischer and Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke were forced to resign for failing to halt the spread of the disease to this country after at least 80 people had died of it across Europe.
...the shocking revelations that Germany is tainted after years of official assurances to the contrary have shaken public faith in government and in the purity of some of the nation's favorite foods...The near-hysteria among the public about the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE is not likely to be abated soon.
...Germans and many other Europeans have responded to the crisis by forsaking beef in dramatic fashion. Even in neighboring Poland, were there has yet to be a single BSE case reported, beef sales are down as much as 50 percent in most stores. In Italy, restaurateurs have been seeking to assure patrons that their meat entrees are BSE-free on the strength of the fact that no Italian cattle have yet been found with the disease. Throughout Europe food industries dependent on beef sales, like the McDonald's hamburger chain, have been touting 100 percent pork alternatives like the new "McFarmer" sandwich.
Most of the 80 deaths tied to BSE have occurred in Britain, where the mad cow scare began in earnest about 4 yrs ago. But human infections of the fatal disease that destroys the brain hava more recently been discovered in France, where dozens of cases of BSE were found in livestock last year and triggered public outcries and a crisis in the meat industry. 5 cases of infected livestock have also been discovered in Spain recently, and Danish authorities reported their third tainted cow just a few hours before the political fallout hit Germany....
--end of article
Comment: To substitute pork for beef is tantamount to "jumping out of the frying pan into the fire." Indeed, Inspiration points out that "Pork, although one of the most common articles of diet, is one of the most injurious. God did not prohibit the Hebrews from eating swine's flesh merely to show His authority, but because it was not a proper article of food for man...The eating of pork has produced scrofula, leprosy, and cancerous humors. PORK EATING IS STILL CAUSING THE MOST INTENSE SUFFERING TO THE HUMAN RACE." Ellen White, "Counsels on Diet and Foods," pp. 392,393.
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Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 2001:
ROME--A suspected case of mad cow disease in Italy was found at a slaughterhouse that supplies meat to McDonald's restaurants in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.
The slaughterhouse in the northern Lombardy region, belongs to the Cremonini group, the exclusive meat supplier for the American fast food giant's restaurants across Italy.
Until the Saturday, when the case was discovered, Italy had been considered mad cow-free. The only two cases reported there were in 1994, in two cows imported from Britain.
"We expected it, Italy could not be the exception," Maria Caramelli told an Italian TV station. She is part of the team testing brain tissue from the cow. Final results of the tests, to be released soon are expected to confirm earlier tests.
McDonald's which has 295 restaurants in Italy serving 600,000 customers daily, recently put up signs in outlets across the country to reassure consumers about the origin of its beef. It stood by its Italian supplier asserting that the "quality, traceability and safety" of its beef fully protect consumers. -end of article.
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Mad Cow Disease: U.S. Experts Work to Stop It Before It Starts
Spread to This Country Isn't Expected, But We're Ready Just in Case
By Denise Mann
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed by Dr. Jacqueline Brooks
Jan. 26, 2001 -- We haven't seen it here yet, but the U.S. is ready for mad cow disease if it should find its way into our cattle supply. The FDA and other health agencies, including the American Red Cross, are watching, waiting, and planning as they work to stave off the epidemic that is spreading across Western Europe.
Even though there has never been a case here, import restrictions on cattle from the U.K. have been in place since 1989, and efforts at active surveillance of our cattle supply started in 1990.
In the most recent development, federal health officials quarantined 1,000 heads of cattle in Texas because a feed mill announced it may have broken the rules governing the preparation of cattle feed. Under these regulations, cows and sheep are not to be fed products containing animal parts, in order to prevent the spread of the disease. But the feed company told the FDA that some of the livestock could have eaten bone meal made from other U.S. cattle. It is just a potential risk, since mad cow disease hasn't been reported in this country, but officials want to investigate.
The FDA has reported that this is not an isolated incident, however, as hundreds of feed makers have been violating the regulations in making their products. Members of the cattle industry will be meeting with the government on Monday Jan. 29, in order to get more businesses to step up their compliance to the rules.
The FDA has also been investigating the risks of contracting the disease in other ways. Researchers are not sure if mad cow disease can be transmitted through blood transfusions, for example. But an advisory committee to the FDA recently recommended widening a ban on blood donations to include long-term residents of France, Ireland, and Portugal to make sure mad cow disease stays out of the U.S. blood supply.
Anyone who lived in any one of these countries for 10 years or more from 1980 on should not be allowed to donate blood for the time being, according to the advisory panel. This committee stopped short of recommending a similar ban for all of Western Europe.
The FDA doesn't have to follow recommendations of its advisory councils, but it usually does. About one year ago, the FDA banned blood donations from any American who spent just six months or more in Britain from 1980 to 1996. Some critics say that restricting who can donate blood may do more harm than good, because our blood supply is already low.
There has also been concern in the U.S. that certain vaccines and/or dietary supplements that use animal protein or glandular extracts, respectively, may be contaminated. The FDA already has issued warnings that supplement makers and pharmaceutical companies should vigorously monitor this to prevent contaminated products from reaching U.S. consumers, but the companies may not be honoring these recommendations or following them as closely as they should. Therefore, the FDA is considering cracking down on regulations that are already in place.
Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also called BSE. It is a degenerative, central nervous system disease that was first diagnosed in cattle in Great Britain in 1986. Affected animals act crazy, or "mad," displaying changes in mood such as nervousness or agitation and having difficulty standing up. Such cattle usually die within two weeks to six months.
Eating infected beef has been linked to a human version of the disease called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This has struck more than 80 people in England and about three people in France.
The disease also has been confirmed in domestic cattle in Belgium, France, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland. Worldwide, there have been more than 178,000 cases since the disease was first found in the U.K.
Ed Curlept, a spokesperson for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, based in Riverdale, Md., is fairly confident that the U.S. has safeguards in place to stop the disease from entering this country's food supply, or to at least find it before it becomes widespread.
"This has been on the top of our priority list for 10 years," he says. "We have looked at over 12,000 animal brains, and we continue to look for BSE in this country by looking at 'downer' cows that can't move."
"We have more than 250 veterinarians that respond to suspicious foreign animal diseases in the U.S.," Curlept tells WebMD. "We are fairly confident, but we are not complacent, and are trying to learn as much as we can from Europeans. If BSE is here, we can either stop it or find it before it becomes widespread."
The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis in Boston had been working under a USDA grant to evaluate the situation in the U.S. should mad cow disease arise here.
George Gray, director of the program in food safety and agriculture there, tells WebMD, "I consider there to be a very small risk to human health or cattle for the U.S. I haven't changed my diet. I still eat beef."
But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, he says.
Gray credits the safety of the U.S. food supply to the preventive vigilance of the FDA/USDA. "They have taken a lot of action in a situation where we haven't had the disease," he says. "Europe is scrambling to do what we are already doing [after they've already found the disease there]."
For example, the U.S. has instituted the measure that bans the use of animal protein in animal feeds meant for ruminants, or animals that chew cud. "This is a pretty amazing step for a country without the disease to take," says Gray.
There have also been a lot of efforts taken to do determine if the disease is here, he says. "We have been looking pretty hard for seven or eight years and haven't seen it," he says.
But, will mad cow disease ultimately find it's way into the U.S. food supply?
"Never say never," he says. "It's extremely unlikely, [but] that's not to say we won't have a sick cow. We could. In the U.K., they still don't know where it came from, so it is entirely possible that we can have a case."
If this occurs, "U.S. reaction may be out of proportion. The government could do a better job of telling people just how much they are doing," says Gray. "The Germans said 'BSE will never happen here,' and it did; and people went berserk."
The bottom line is that "if we had a sick animal in the U.S., it would not be a good time to be in the hamburger business," says Gray, "[but] whether that's an appropriate response is questionable."
"Panic is a good word for what's going on [because] there has never been a case of [mad cow disease] in this country," says Ruth Kava, RD, PhD, director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health in New York City. "It has never been seen here. We don't have it. So I don't see a real reason for widespread fear."
"All that the FDA is doing is just precautionary," she tells WebMD. "There is no evidence that it can be transmitted through blood and no evidence that it can be found in dietary supplements."
The recent FDA actions may be related to mistakes made at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. "Early on in the epidemic, we thought it could not be transmitted through blood, so donors were not screened," she says.
But "much to our surprise and chagrin, we found that [AIDS] was blood-borne, and that gets our antenna quivering," she says.
There has been concern that dietary supplements may contain imported extracts from brains, testicles, and other organs of cattle -- and whether the cattle were exposed to mad cow disease is unknown.
"People who take dietary supplements with glandular extracts should consider what they are doing," she says. "Some glands, like tonsils, could carry infected material but not necessarily mad cow."
© 2001 WebMD Corporation. All rights reserved.
But alas, the ill effects of a meat-centered diet are already felt in this country as well as around the world. Even if food animals are healthy, (a rarity), eating them is not. Study after study clearly demonstrates that beef, pork, poultry and lamb, even when untainted by disease, contain massive amounts of saturated fats and cholesterol, thus helping to clog arteries, hospitals and cemeteries worldwide.
Mounting evidence likewise links meat consumption with strokes, cancer, diabetes, gout, osteoporosis and a host of other infectious and inflammatory diseases.
Speaking of poultry, Alex Hershaft, Ph.D., writing in "Vegetarian Voice, Vol. 21, No. 4, warns: "Chickens are fed more infected animal protein than cows--and are likely carriers of the disease (mad cow)--they just don't live long enough to exhibit symptoms. We must convince consumers that chicken is not a 'health food,' but a reliable source of saturated fat, cholesterol, salmonella--and perhaps 'Mad Chicken Disease.' "
A further warning comes from Neal Barnard, M.D., writing in "Good Medicine, (Spring 1996): "Research has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that meat is to your digestive tract and arteries what tobacco is to your lungs. Meat contributes to colon cancer, heart attacks and other risks that run neck in neck with the toll brought on by tobacco."
...so it is obvious that we in this country are already suffering from the ill effects of a meat diet--mad cow disease aside. Let us do what so many have done and enjoy the good health offered by a correct vegetarian diet.
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The city zoo in Berlin's Kreuzberg district has reported that many of their geese, ducks and hens have vanished in recent days. It seems that the staff have eaten them.
What a scene, as Germans confronted by empty shelves at the supermarkets, go foraging for food. With BSE beef already off the menu, along with sausages and now pork, filling a German belly is becoming nearly impossible.
Dwindling meat options are producing near panic. Even those still willing to risk steak are finding that restaurants are no longer serving it, while meat counters have at best only token display of browning beef.
After the first mad cow scare in November, shoppers switched to game. Now they are being informed that venison is also suspect because deer in German forests are apparently fed on the same kind of contaminated meal fodder that has brought BSE to cattle.
Lamb, too, should be avoided, scientists warn, because of scrapie. Battery chickens come laced with salmonella and occasionally dioxin. Cats and dogs, in case anyone should fancy them, are out because of the low-grade beef they are fed.
Other pets, such as hamsters and guinea-pigs, are equally unwholesome because they, too have been unwittingly munching on the remnants of animal carcasses for years.
That, more or less, leaves fish, largely unknown to German cuisine apart from the roll-mop variety. Fresh fish, in any case, is hard to find.
There was also pork, of course, prepared in hundreds of ingenious ways from the humble fried chop to Helmut Kohl's beloved Saumagen, or stuffed pig stomach. No German would starve while there was pork around in abundance.
But, alas, officials discovered last week the millions of Bavarian pigs have for years been fattened up with the help of illegal drugs, including the same kind of anabolic steroids that enabled East German female athletes to swim as fast as men, at the price of growing hair on their chests.
To those who do not wish to repeat the feat, pork is looking rather unappetizing.
It is bad news for most Germans, who would rather die than become vegetarian. What are they going to eat? That is the question preoccupying much of the nation's media, with TV channels scheduling special programs daily in search of the elusive answer.
The German parliament's canteen appears to have banned both beef and pork--it latest offerings being cabbage stew, elk ragout and organic vegetarian cannelloni.
Beef has also been declared verboten in the armed services, presumably on the grounds that you cannot have mad soldiers. Pork is still allowed.
Everyone else must get used to elk, reindeer, ostrich, crocodile and other exotic meats which have recently turned up at the shops, or go hunting. --end of article
(Excerpts adapted from an article by Imre Karacs, in Berlin).
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 02-05-2001).]
WASHINGTON--The United States on Friday followed Canada's lead in temporarily suspending imports of Brazilian beef gravy, corned beef, geletins and other processed beef products as a precaution against 'mad cow' disease and its deadly human variation.
The U.S. ban came less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration quarantined a small Texas feedlot for violating rules that forbid using feed containing ground-up bits of cattle.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that although there was no evidence of mad cow disease in Brazil, it was concerned that certain Brazilian beef products might have come into contact with beef from Europe, which has been hit with an outbreak of the brain-wasting disease.
"This decision is a tmeporary action pending the release of requested data to complete a bovine spongiform encephalopathy risk assessment," the USDA said in a statement, referring to the disease by its official name. The department said further action would be taken if needed to keep the disease out of the U.S.
BSE, as the disease is also known, is believed to have spread from Britain when the bones, spinal cord and other remains of diseased cattle were ground up for use in livestock feed.
Nearly 90 people in Britain, France and Ireland have died of or been stricken with the human version.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 02-05-2001).]
Scott Norton was browsing through herbal supplements when he spotted bottles containing not just plants but some unexpected animal parts: brains, testicles, tracheas and glands from cows and other animals.
The Maryland physician sounded an alarm: How can Americans be sure those supplements, some imported from Europe, are made of tissue free from mad cow disease?
Norton's complaint has government scientists scrambling to investigate a possible hole in the nation's safety net against mad cow disease and it cousin that destroys human brains. --Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, Feb. 2, 2001.
36 Million cows are slaughtered every year, but only a 1000 cows are checked a month for the mad cow disease here in America. When the cow is slaughtered, the brain is sent to a lab for testing for the mad cow disease. Whereas in other countries they check 10,000 cows a month. Our test takes two days, whereas the test in Europe only takes two hours. We can only guess if the rest of the cow gets lost while waiting for the results.
He said the reason we may not know that there could or could not be mad cow disease in this country is that it takes 10 years or more for the disease to manifest itself. Since the cows have a short life span, we have no way of knowing until we start to see the affects in people and by then it will be to late to do anything. You cannot test this as you can for HIV in 6 months. It only appears on the surface just before you get the disease and all the ramifications from it.
From the phone calls on both sides, this is having an effect on the hearers. What should we be doing???
The Pastor at my church is greatly alarmed by all of this and we are making headway in getting a program started regarding the health message and all connecting issues. We should have it going by the end of March. We are now putting all the people, paperwork and programs together. I am very excited.
Dr. Dugald any help you can be to me, please feel free to write or call. Laurie has sent me the first set of the Abundant Living videos for us to show at church.
I never dreamed from that day last March, 2000 when I found out about my diabetes to this day how God was working in my life for this moment, but now I see it.
Liane
PS: The Mad-Cow program was an interview with Michael Hansen from the Consumer's Union and can be located at:
http://www.consumersunion.org
[This message has been edited by liane (edited 02-11-2001).]
Ottawa--Canadians may be at risk of contracting the human form of mad-cow disease from domestic beef because current testing is inadequate, scientists say.
Neither the United States nor Canada do large-scale testing that is needed to detect diseases such as mad cow, said Michael Hansen, a biologist with the U.S. Consumers Union.
David Westaway of the Centre for Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Univ. of Toronto said while 20,000 animals are being tested weekly in France, Canada only tests about 900 animals a year. -Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, Feb. 18, 2001.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 02-20-2001).]
Wendy
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Maranatha!!!
David Westaway of the Centre for Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Univ. of Toronto said while 20,000 animals are being tested weekly in France, Canada only tests about 900 animals a year. -Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, Feb. 18, 2001
Maybe we all should petition our local Conference Health Ministry Directors to find out what information is being sent out to the churches to create awareness.
France tests 20,000 animals a week or 1,040,000 a year while Canada tests 900 a year. This is equivalent to no testing at all.
It takes two days after the animal is killed to get the lab results back if the sample is sent immediately.
Think about what happens in the two days to the animal, how far along the production line it may have gotten, etc. etc. Any item contaminated by the tainted meat has to be destroyed also. My Pastor's sister in law died of Mad Cow disease last year. The Government took the body, there was no funeral. All the surgical implements were taken away and destroyed.
Wow.
Richard
People showing no symptoms of illness can transmit Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the human form of mad cow disease, through blood. Now doctors in Britain fear that an 11-month-old baby, whose mother died of CJD, contracted the disease while in the womb. The child has brain damage and suffers from convulsions, but confirmation of the disease can only be made from a post mortem examination if she dies.
Both the nonhuman and human forms of the disease are believed to come from abnormal proteins called prions rather than from conventional organisms.
Although scientists are still trying to determine how the protein functions in a healthy brain, they agree it continues to be spread by contaminated surgical (original CJD) and by eating tissues from infected cows (new variant, or vCJD). Dozens of people in Britain have died from this brain-wasting disease since the first vCJD outbreak in 1986. Scientists believe some cases take as long as 30 years to reveal symptoms, which may have serious consequences in the U.K. and around the world. --Reprinted from Good Medicine, Spring 2001, Physicians committee for Responsible Medicine.
FRANCE--A French teenager believed to have been suffering from the human variant of mad cow disease has died after slowly losing the ability to walk, speak and breathe.
Arnaud Eboli, 19, died this past week, according to the Assn. of Victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. His death marks France's third fatality from this malady, which is linked to the consumption of tainted beef. In Britain, where mad cow disease was identified in 1995, ninety people have died of the disease.
Eboli's family was one of 2 French families that filed a lawsuit in November charging that French, British and European Union authorities did not act quickly enough to wipe out mad cow disease. --Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, April 27, 2001.
DTL
Ostriches are thought to be dying of mad cow disease in Germany.
The birds have developed BSE type symptoms after being fed animal bonemeal, which is blamed for causing the disease in cows.
German newspaper Die Zeit reports that the symptoms were seen in ostriches in various zoos.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_284800.html?menu=news.latestheadlines
Hongkong's first victim of variant Cruetzfeldt-Jakob Disease(vCJD), the human form of mad-cow disease has been identified as a 34 year old woman. A statement from the Prince of Wales hosopital confirmed that the patient had fulfilled all clinical diagnostic criteria for the disease.
The unnamed patient was said to be local but had lived in Britain from 1985 to 1992 and from 1997 to early this year.
The difference between variant CJD and classic CJD is characterized by vCJD's earlier psychiatric symptoms and striking younger people. Of the 18 cases of classic CJD in Hongkong since 1996, 16 have died. --adapted from a Rueters New Item.
ss
GREECE--This country confirmed its first case of mad cow disease July 2, 2001 at a slaughterhouse in a northern town. The disease was detected in a cow at the slaughterhouse in Sidirokastro. The bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was found during routine testing implemented on Jan. 1, 2001. --adapted from the Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, July 3, 2001.
Shouldn't we be seeing such warnings in our offices and churches where there is Pot Luck lunch served with meat?
It is high time that warnings be sent out on ALL fronts.
A major beef scare has swept Japan after British scientists confrimed a case of mad cow disease in a Tokyo suburb, the first case outside Europe.
Beef prices in the area have plummeted by 20 percent and meat packing firms have started identifying beef as imported from Australia and the U.S. Many countries, including the U.S. and several Asian nations have imposed bans on beef imported from Japan. --Los Angeles Times, Sept. 23, 2001, and the Riverside Calif. Press-Enterprise, Sept. 26, 2001.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 09-27-2001).]
TOKYO (AP) -A nationwide probe for mad cow disease following the discovery of what turned out to be Asia's first case revealed that the suspect animal was not destroyed as previously announced, but processed into meat and bone meal, a government spokesman said.
Agriculture Ministry spokesman Toshimichi Kado said an investigation revealed that a meal plant and a feed mill in 2 different Japanese states were in possession of tons of meal that included processed meat and bones from the 5-year old Holstein milk cow who it was discovered had mad cow disease.
Earlier government reports said the animal had been slaughtered and burned. Kado said a misunderstanding between ministry officials and local authorities had resulted in the erroneous announcement.
The suspect cow, from a farm just east of Tokyo, was slaughtered in August after mysteriously losing its ability to stand. Its meat and bones were sent to be processed into meal before the results of a test for mad cow disease was known, Kyodo News agency said. --adapted from an Associated Press article dated Sept. 14, 2001.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 09-27-2001).]
A New Class Of Germs
Biologist Stanley Prusiner performed groundbreaking research on a
new class of germ that slowly attacks the brain. Prusiner, who
was born on this date in 1942, began researching prions in 1972
after one of his patients died of dementia resulting from the
human equivalent of "mad cow" disease. Years later, he and his
research team at the University of California at San Francisco
discovered a new class of infectious agents-which they called
"prions"-that are aberrant proteins. Certain prions, under
unusual circumstances, make their way into brain cells. If the
proteins that make up the prion take over the cell machinery,
they can cause nerve cell destruction and disease. Originally
met with skepticism, Prusiner's research won him the Nobel Prize
in physiology or medicine in 1997 for his discovery of "a new
biological principle of infection."
Copyright InteliHealth, Inc., 2002. All rights reserved.
MAD COW SCARE INSPIRES BLOOD DONOR LIMITS
WASHINGTON--New U.S. limits on blood donations from certain folk who have spent time in Europe take effect today to protect against mad cow disease, and blood banks say they could face shortages.
The restrictions from the Food and Drug Administration are a precaution meant to keep the blood supply safe from the disease.
As of today, people will be banned from donating blood in the U.S. if they have lived in France for 5 years or more from 1980 to the present or have visited or lived in Britain for a total of 3 months or more from 1980 to 1996.
In addition those who received a blood transfusion in Britain from 1980 to the present, and current or former military personnel and their dependents who spent 6 months or more on military bases in northern Europe from 1980 to 1990 or in southern Europe from 1980 to 1996, will also be barred from donating blood.
Experts beleive people contract the human form of mad cow disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, by eating infected meat. More than 100 people, most of them in Britain, have developed the brain-wasting illness.
America's Blood Centers, which collects about half of the blood in the U.S., said it may lose more than 300,000 donations after the new blood donor rules take effect.
"In order to assure that blood will be available when it's needed, regular donors need to give blood more often, and new donors must replace those lost from the deferrals," Jeanne Datriotis, president of America's Blood Centers, said in a statement. --adapted.
Suzanne
Israel confirmed its first case of "mad cow" disease, found in the Golan Heights, but officials said they were confident no infected meat had reached the market.
The Agriculture Ministry said it will examine the brains of all cattle over 30 months old that are sent to slaughterhouses before releasing their meat to the market. The offspring of the infected cow and 3 others in the herd will be destroyed, the ministry said.
Officials said the Israeli-born animal was probably infected by poultry fish meal imported from Europe. A biopsy showed bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. --Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2002.
More:
MAD COW DISCOVERED IN AUSTRIA
Considered a country at very low risk for mad cow disease--because it has imported cattle feed from the U.S. since WWII--Austria discovered its first case of mad cow disease in December 2001. European Union experts had previously concluded that both Austria and the U.S. have low risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) in their herds. Unlike the U.S., however, Austria has a rigorous BSE testing program instituted in Januaary of 2001, which uses the lastest rapid-testing techniques and makes it possible to take large test samples.
The finding of this disease in Austria leaves Sweden as the only country within the European Union without a reported case of BSE, after Finland also reported its first case of the brain-wasting scourge in December 2001. --EarthSave Magazine, Fall/Winter 2001.
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 06-07-2002).]
Really!! I xrayed a patient in my hometown who died from Mad-Cow disease. This patient was diagnosed at the famous Mayo Clinic. And that happened 10 years ago!!
Also could there be a connection between Mad Cow and Parkinsons disease with the dimentia that sometimes comes with it? It just seems to me that there is some kind of connection there but I have no way to prove it.
I'm so thankful for the Spirit of Prophecy to give us this light. We do need to share it with others.
What they don't say is that most cows in the USA are slaughtered well before they are 3 years of age so any Mad Cow Disease won't really show up. But evidentally this cow was a pet or something and it got sick and was tested positive for Mad Cow disease. What does this tell us?
STAY AWAY from meat, dairy and everything that has it in it!
We have this spongiform disease throughout the world and the U.S. Another concern is not just our food, but all avenues where animal substances will get into the body, most espcially the blood stream.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/12/23/madcow.chronology.reut/index.html
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Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper. -- 2 Chronicles 20:20
It might be of interest that the infected cow parts that are highly infectious are thought to be in the rendering system. Understanding that the infectious agent may transmit mad cow disease to other animals and humans, the question now comes to mind as to where the material will end up?
Dog/Cat food, glue used in any form and pellets for feed for cows, sheep, etc.
Liane
http://www.purehealthsystems.com/render.html
Also the tallow used in toothpaste is another thing that comes from the rendering plants.
Liane
[This message has been edited by liane (edited 12-24-2003).]
http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/render_ed.html
Liane
Thanks all, for keeping us posted on this dreadful disease. Here is more info from Robert Cohen's website:
It was inevitable. The state of Washington is home to America's first mad cow....
Last summer, the U.S. destroyed Canada's meat industry by closing its borders to meat and dairy products from the north. Now it is America's meat and dairy industries that will suffer the consequences of marketing diseased flesh and body fluids.
Canadians shunned beef after their first case of Mad Cow Dis. Will Americans do the same?
A Holstein cow from a dairy farm in Mabton, Washington has tested positive. Mabton is in the center of the state, just 40 miles southeast of Yakima. The entire farm has been quarantined, but the damage has been done.
Americans have been drinking milk from that cow for many years. This is as bad as it get folks, for the disease is here. The plague is coming. Milk and dairy products may be the key to passing on Mad Cow Disease to humans.
The active substance that causes Mad Cow Disease to spread to humans and causes a brain wasting encephalopathy called Cruetzfeld Jacob Disease (CJD) is the prion. They are protein fibrils, crystalline in structure and are not destroyed by pasteurization.
Since one single cow filters 10,000 quarts of blood through her udder each day, chances are that an infected cow has spread her disease to humans in her milk. 10 pounds of milk are required to make 1 pound of hard cheese. 12 pounds of milk is used to make 1 pound of ice cream. 21 pounds of milk makes one pound of butter. (From Robert Cohen's website: notmilk.com)
"The light given me is that it will not be very long before we shall have to give up any animal food. Even milk will have to be discarded. Disease is accumulating rapidly. The curse of God is upon the earth, because man has cursed it." Ellen White, Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 357. (Written July 28, 1899)
"...In all parts of the world provision will be made to supply the place of milk and eggs. And the Lord will let us know when the time comes to give up these articles. He desires all to feel that they have a gracious heavenly Father who will instruct them in all things. The Lord will give dietetic art and skill to His people in all parts of the world, teaching them how to use for the sustenance of life the products of the earth." Ibid. p. 359. (Written in 1901).
Comment: The Lord speaks through circumstances and current events as surely as He speaks through his Word.
A word to the wise,
~Suzanne~
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 12-25-2003).]
This also can apply to pigs, those that eat it in the world, sheep and goats and deer. How deers are getting it is not known, but it is getting very widespread in the US as my friend Nani said in some part sof Georgia you cannot hunt deer this year.
The most important part of this disease is due to pellets that are feed to cows, sheep and pigs. These pellets are a combination of meat and grain that is feed to these above animals. These pellets come from rendering plants that use every animal under the sun from domestic animals to wild ones scraped off the street.
Liane
Here is the latest on the U.S. "Mad Cow". Seems like it may have come from Canada.
Notice that the eating of animal products is not all that we have to be concerned about. The government is taking a look at "all of the byproducts rendered from the cow, including items like soap and soil nutrients."
While God gives specific light in regards to dangers we may face, He does not expect us to ignore light when it comes to us through other sources. Some may ignore this bit of information regarding the soap with which we wash our hands, but we have been buying vegetable soap for a quite awhile. We are in the process of making our own. Prions are very potent and in the rendering process the dangerous material from sick animals is mixed with all other animals. Like milk, one dangerous animal will infect all of the material from the other animals it is mixed with. Something to ponder next time one washes their hands before preparing dinner.
We must not forget toothpaste is made with pork and beef tallow and that comes from this source of the rendering plants.
Also the stamps and envelope that so many lick to seal comes from the rendering plants.
There is the other issue also of the wastewater that passes through these plants after the extraction that happens is going back to the filter system of the water we drink and bath with.
Prion cannot be burned, boiled away nor is there any treatment or antibotics that can cure it. Once you have it in your system there is nothing that anyone can do at the present time and from what I read it does not look like there ever will be a process in which to help those that do get it.
Liane
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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie
I will have to find it again, but I know for sure in the slaughter houses only 1 in every 500,000 cows are sent for inspection and testing, that means that 499,999 cows never get checked. And also remember that now it is ok to cut away diseased parts of the carcus and send the rest of that same animal for food to people.
Liane
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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie
[This message has been edited by Sister Glass (edited 12-28-2003).]
This message of clean and unclean was made clear to Moses from God to the people that would become to be known as the children of Israel.
The message of clean and unclean foods got lost during the Christian era, but now there is a last generation that God has made known once again of the message of clean and unclean foods.
Yet God did not stop there. Through the Spirit of Prophecy God gave us an even deeper message. Let us go back to Eden and eat as I had given you in the beginning. This message was enforced through the reading of Daniel and how following the counsel given by God from Eden and Daniel was blessed because of that.
Now something is happening that is changing the way we need to live and give glory to God.
Romans:
8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Let's face it, the earth is falling apart from disease, distruction and abuse. We have made a mess of this planet. It is already showing the signs that it can no longer support the life as we know it or the lifestyles of the people who have taken so much and given nothing back.
There is much truth and hope in the Spirit of Prophecy messages given to us. They expound upon what has already been given to us through the Scriptures. This light is a gift from God in how we should be living in this last generation.
For those of us that know the a nd live these truths must be the depository of information and wisdom for those that have yet to learn and understand.
That is what this forum Healthful Living is all about. Those of us that have learn the message and are living it, must pass on to those of us that still need to learn.
Liane
When I was younger I use to laugh at vegetarians, no more not today I do not. They will have the last laugh on me because unless the Lord comes they will outlive me by years.
A couple that I know were and still are part of a government study program of SDA's and how they differ from the rest of the nation when it comes to lifestyle experiences. Some of our professional people in the church were given the current findings and this is what was learned:
Those that ate all kinds of meat verses those SDA's that just eat clean meats we outlived people from the world by at least two years or if not more.
Those in the world that eat vegetarian on different levels verses the SDA's our church people outlived them by three or four years.
Even when you compared the meat eaters verses vegetarians within the church the veg people outlived our meat eaters by five to seven years. And we are talking about better health as well for each group.
The government made no mention as to why there was a difference in life spand between world compared to the church. It was the conclusion of the church professionals that the one day a week sabbath rest was the reason.
Liane
Many are taking comfort in the fact that only 1 animal was found to have the disease. But who knows how many others made it to the dinner plates of America? And how many other animals will they find tomorrow, or the next day, week, month, etc? An article in the March 12,2001 issue of Newsweek, entitled The Slow Deadly Spread of Mad Cow Disease, laments the fact that "America's safeguards and surveillance efforts are far weaker than most people realize."
Spread by eating only the brains (yuk!) and spinal cord? Don't count on it! Slaughtering practices that contaminate meat with bits of brain and spinal cord tissue could easily spread mad cow disease to humans. Slaughterers use pneumatic stun guns or captive bolts to knock cattle out before slaughter, and both devices can blast fragments of brain and spinal cord into the cow's bloodstream and muscle tissue.
American slaughterhouses waste very little. To get as much meat from animal carcasses as possible, they use two methods that may contaminate meat further with spinal cord tissue. "Mechanically separated product" is a meat paste made by crushing the bones, including vertebrae, and then straining out the bond fragments. Products made with this paste (including lunch meats and hot dogs) are required to carry a label that lists "mechanically separated beef product."
Advanced meat recovery systems, mechanically remove the last bits of meat from bones. Tests have shown that the meat may contain fragments of spinal cord tissue, which can be used in ground beef, hot dogs and sausages. --Natural Health Magazine, Oct/Now. 2001.
Timemagazine, Jan 29, 2001 also carried an article showing that "while the disorder strikes primarily the brain and the rest of the central nervous system, these tissues may have contaminated other parts during slaughtering and thus entered the human food supply."
Repeat Performance? An article in the Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1996, notes that the first case of Mad Cow disease in the British Isles occurred in 1985, when a Holstein dairy cow suddenly became edgy and uncoordinated, then aggressive and unpredictable....(The rest is history). The Los Anteles Times, Dec. 24, 2003, pointed out that a Holstein dairy cow...tested positive for "mad cow" disease. The spinal cord and brain were removed and the remainder was sent to a processing plant. Elsa Murano, undersecrtary for food safety at the Agriculture Department, said it was possible that the meat had already made it to grocery stores. Can you believe it?
Indeed several days later a news item noted that this meat had been distributed in 8 states and Guam.
The World Health Organization (WHO), an agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Geneva, disagrees with this deadly practice: "No part or product of an animal which has shown signs of a TSE (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy), should enter any (human or animal) food chain. Countries should not permit tissues that are likely to contain BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) to enter any (human or animal) food chain."
~Suzanne~
Time magazine, noted back in Jan. 27, 1997 "there are 44 million head of cattle in the U.S. and 17 million are killed for food each year. If just one of these slaughtered cows turns out to be a mad cow, the illness that's now an ocean away could establish its first beachhead on American shores." Well that has happened. indeed, '...the thing which I (we) greatly feared is come...." Job 3:25.
Similarities of Alzheimer's disease and Mad Cow disease.
Gregory Cheadle, writing in Tainted Meat offers this warning: "Since CJD Creutzfelt Jakob Disease and vCJD can only be confirmed by an autopsy, could it be that the alarming increase in the number of cases of what we loosly call Alzheimer's disease and dementia are actually misdiagnosed and undiagnosed cases of vCJD or CJD in variouis stages resulting from eating BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, mad cow disease) infected meat?"
30 years ago few had heard of Alzheimer's disease. Today it is one of the most dreaded diseases known, affecting over 4 million Americans.
"Can't Fool (With) Mother Nature!"
That's right, Mother Nature never intended that diseased meat should be fed to herbivorous (vegetarian) animals. Indeed, it is grossly unnatuiral to feed other animals to cattle, who are natural vegetarians. When we violate this rule...watch out! anything can happen.
And yes, since 1997 there has been a ban on cattle feed that contains tissue from the brain and spine of infected animals, and other animal parts, etc. but this feed ban has been grossly violated by cattlemen and feed mills, etc. There is really no way to enfore it and in many, many cases it is simply ignored. This according to John Stauber, writing in Mad Cow U.S.A.
A Wall Street Journal headline: From Lipstick to Marshmallows, It's Got Some Cow In It. Indeed, because of the mad cow scare, some cosmetic and dietary supplement makers have switched to pig sources. And many folk have given up eating beef in favor of pork. Have mercy! What is this world coming to?
~Suzanne~
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 12-30-2003).]
But we slaughter most of our cows before they reach the age where they could show symptoms of Mad Cow disease..like at two or three years of age. In other words, the cows don't live long enough for us to even KNOW if they have Mad Cow disease or not because they are already slaughtered and people have already eaten them.
Ohhhhh, horrible thought!! What would this be called? A plague or pestilence?
It became a surprise to me to learn that milking cows only live for three years now instead of ten as I had believed. I wonder if it is because of this three year limit.
My question would be and I will try to find out is that the prion that causes this disease does not show up until three or more years, but does that mean that before then there are no prion in their system?
Is there a clock that says three years is the time when the body of the cow starts to process prion?
Liane
They said the very same thing I said in my previous post here. They wondered WHEN the cow gets the disease and IS it already in the system when the cow seems healthy and for how long? Lots of questions but the one thing that might be a clue is this: if we get it, it stays in our systems for years before it shows up as a disease. Is it possible for the same thing to happen to the cows?
If so, then those with alzheimers or CJD today are a small minority now compared to what is going to happen in a few short years!!
Debbie
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Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper. -- 2 Chronicles 20:20
God has blessed His people with "light". One of the reasons for doing the program was to educate people on the "new science" that cooking our food does not necessarily stop the transmission of infectious disease. It is true that high temperature can destroy the prion, but it is much higher than anything that will happen to meat or milk prior to human consumption. In the program, Dr. Hulse said that it would take 350 degrees centigrade to halt the infective nature of the prion.
Who can say today that it is safe to drink milk from an infected cow under the age of three? I am not sure that anyone can. I just finished reading the transcript of today's Technical Briefing by the U.S. Government Officials On BSE. It was said in response to a question about testing the meat being recalled, that they could not test the meat. They stated that they needed central nervous system material to test.
This indicates to me that if a milk cow was infected, there is no way to know this unless the cow is slaughtered and the brain tested. Can the milk be infectious? It seems that it is not highly infectious, but it is not known for sure. There is thinking that urine and feces from animals may transmit the disease in the case of deer and elk. The world is not enlightened as to the dangers of eating animal products, but they are learning quickly if they want to.
There is a population of humans living in the state of Washington that are concerned that the discovery of the U.S. mad cow may make it more difficult for them to get the brains of cattle that they consider a delicacy. Some will not take heed to the risk.
We do not need to take the risk because we don't live for the pleasing of our perverted appetites, but rather for the glory of God. We know that there is a God in heaven who has given us a diet that is perfect for our bodies. We trust in our Bible, our God, and the light given to help us prepare for the soon coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Let us walk in the light as He is in the light and all of the questions so important for the world to answer we do not need to know. By walking in the light we are protected from the dangers now facing the world with the disease in the animals.
There is much effort to keep the truth away from the public regarding the dangers. Notice in this article that "downer" cattle are being used without testing all for BSE.
[This message has been edited by Richard Myers (edited 01-10-2004).]
Those who do not pay attention to what is in their food when they eat at restaurants, enjoy your vegetable soup seasoned with these soup bones. The government says there is nothing to worry about.
"...The brain is the capital of the body, the seat of all the nervous forces and of mental action. The nerves proceeding from the brain control the body. By the brain nerves, mental impressions are conveyed to all the nerves of the body as by telegraph wires; and they control the vital action of every part of the system. All the organs of motion are governed by the communications they receive from the brain." -Ellen White, My Life Today, p. 148.
Brothers and sisters, this statement reminds us of something we perhaps already know. Nerves from the brain and spinal cord run all through the body. In animals the process may not be as sophisticated, etc.,(they cannot think, etc.) but the principle applies. Hence, when animals with Mad Cow are passed on to the consumer after the brain and spinal cord are removed should be a cause of grave concern. Nerves from the brain run all through its body.
"Disease in cattle is making meat eating a dangerous matter. The Lord's curse is upon the earth, upon man, upon beasts, upon the fish in the sea; and as transgression becomes almost universal, the curse will be permitted to become as broad and as deep as the transgression. Disease is contacted by the use of meat. The diseased flesh of these dead carcasses is sold in the market places, and disease among men is the sure result.
"The Lord would bring His people into a position where they will not touch or taste the flesh of dead animals...There is no safety in the eating of the flesh of dead animals, and in a short time the milk of the cows will also be excluded from the diet of God's commandment-keeping people. In a short time it will not be safe to use anything that comes from the animal creation...." Ellen White, Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 411.
~Suzanne~
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The Food and Drug Administration announced steps late Monday to close loopholes in its livestock feed ban -- a key protection against spread of the brain-wasting disease in cattle -- and to make sure that people don't consume risky animal parts in processed foods and supplements.
"Firewalls have been in place for many years," said FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan. "The steps we're taking today are intended to provide even greater security."
The government maintains the food supply is safe despite last month's discovery of an infected cow imported from Canada, because the animal's brain, spinal cord and certain other tissues -- parts that carry the disease -- were removed before the meat was processed.
Still, the Agriculture Department soon took steps to increase meat safety, including a meatpacking ban on so-called downer cattle like the infected Holstein and restrictions on mechanical slaughter techniques that could contaminate beef with nervous system tissue.
On Monday, the FDA made its own rules for processed food conform with those new restrictions to provide extra assurance that products like canned soups or frozen pizza won't be made with downer cattle or mechanically separated beef.
Also, cosmetics and dietary supplements can't be made with potentially infectious cow parts, FDA said. In recent years, some supplements have claimed to harbor cow brains.
FACT FILE Battling mad cow disease
Steps planned by U.S. officials to help protect the food supply from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)
• 'Downer' cattle
• Test and hold
• Advanced meat recovery (AMR)
• Cattle tracking system
• Specified risk material (SRMs)
• Air stun guns
• Further bans on feed
All cows considered non-ambulatory -- those that cannot walk by themselves -- when they reach a slaughter facility will be banned from human consumption. Even so, the USDA will continue to test them for BSE.
The meat of any animal selected for BSE testing by USDA inspectors will be held until the test results return as negative. (It can currently be sent into the food supply.)
Any animal condemned by inspectors for signs of 'systemic disease' during pre-slaughter inspections is barred from use for food.
In this process, machinery is used to remove muscle tissue from cow skeletons.
The USDA has called for more testing of AMR products, since some outlawed brain and spinal tissue has been found in this meat during testing. The agency will also ban AMR techniques on skulls and spinal columns of cows older than 30 months.
The USDA says it will speed up development of a system already being planned to identify and track all head of cattle in the United States. Groups inside and outside the beef industry have long called for a national tracking system.
Parts of some cattle known to be at high risk of transferring the proteins that cause mad cow disease will be banned from human food.
SRMs will include include brains, eyes, skulls, spinal cords and some other neural tissue of cows older than 30 months. Small intestines of all cattle will be banned.
The USDA also wants better procedures to ensure all these parts are separated from human supply.
Air-injection stunning devices will be banned. These guns use high pressure to ram an air blast, often through a bolt, into a cow's brain, killing it instantly. They make the slaughter process more humane, but can force bits of brain tissue into the rest of the animal, potentially tainting its meat.
The industry has been phasing out these devices and the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service was already working on a rule to prohibit them.
The FDA currently prohibits the feeding of mammal protein to ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep and goats. But the feed can be given to other livestock, and their protein can be fed back to cattle.
The agency may face pressure to strengthen its ban, for example to prohibit the use of all high-risk cattle parts in any animal feed.
Source: MSNBC • Printable version
Worries about feed
But the nation's main defense against mad cow disease is a 1997 ban on giving cattle feed made from the protein or bone meal of sheep or certain other mammals -- because that feed is considered the way the deadly disease originally spread in Britain and other countries.
Critics have long worried about some big loopholes: Cows could be fed blood from slaughtered cattle, usually as a milk replacement for calves. That exemption was allowed even though for years Americans possibly exposed to mad cow-tainted beef in other countries haven't been allowed to donate blood, for fear the disease could spread that way. Last month, the British government announced that a man who died from the human form of mad cow disease may have been infected through a transfusion.
Also, cow parts are allowed in pig and poultry feed -- and until now, chicken waste could be swept up and added to cattle feed, meaning cows could indirectly be exposed.
Among FDA's actions are new rules for cattle feed that:
Prohibit mammalian blood and blood products from being fed to cattle or other ruminant animals.
Ban chicken waste from livestock feed.
Ban the use of uneaten meat and other scraps from large restaurants from being recycled into cattle feed.
Require factories that make both livestock feed and feed for other animals that uses bovine ingredients to have separate production lines to guard against accidental contamination.
Related stories
Beef industry unveils post-mad cow ads
Mad cow disease bodes well for bison biz
U.S. has no plans to test all cattle
'Mistakes can still happen'
To ensure the rules are followed, FDA this year will increase inspections of feed mills and renderers, conducting 2,800 inspections and contracting with states for an additional 3,800.
The agency's steps are an improvement but don't go far enough, said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. The main problem: Poultry and pigs can still eat feed made from cow remains, so what's to prevent a farmer from accidentally mixing up the feed?
"They have more protections, but when you get down to the farm level, mistakes can still happen," she said.
FDA's announcement came as Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian said he expects many of the infected Holstein's herdmates will never be found.
The department has been searching for 80 animals that were raised in Alberta, Canada, and shipped to the United States in 2001 with the Holstein that wound up in Mabton.
Veterinarian Ron DeHaven said officials now are focusing on what happened to 25 of the Canadian-born animals raised within a two-year window of the Holstein's birth, because they would be most likely to have eaten the same, possibly contaminated feed. Officials have located 14 of them, he said.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
Officials investigate links in Wash., Oregon and IdahoThe Associated Press
Updated: 6:32 p.m. ET Jan. 23, 2004WASHINGTON - Herds of cows are under quarantine in three states, and agriculture officials still lack full accounting of meat that was recalled after discovery of mad cow disease in the United States a month ago.
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Cows with links to the Holstein diagnosed with the brain-wasting disease have been found in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. More than 600 animals have been destroyed in the course of the investigation.
The disease has not been detected from tests on roughly 150 of those animals.
“It’s not unusual for an investigation of this type to have multiple states involved,” said Agriculture Department spokeswoman Julie Quick.
Investigators continue to look for about 70 cows that could have come to the United States from the same Alberta, Canada, farm where the sick Holstein was born in 1997. Suspicion focuses on those animals because scientists believe feed containing protein from infected animals is the most likely source of transmission of the disease.
INTERACTIVE
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a threat because humans can develop a similar brain-wasting illness, a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from eating contaminated beef products.
Is the beef supply safe?
Agriculture officials have insisted that the U.S. beef supply is safe, but they nevertheless recommended a recall of more than 10,000 pounds of meat from the sick cow and other animals slaughtered with it on Dec. 9.
USDA officials said the parts most likely to carry infection — brain, spinal cord and lower intestine — were removed before the meat from the infected cow was cut and processed for human consumption.
Most of the meat went to suppliers and stores in Oregon and Washington, while small amounts reached California, Idaho, Montana and Nevada. As of Thursday, USDA officials said they did not know how many pounds of beef had been returned.
Some probably was consumed in the 14 days between the animal’s slaughter and the mad cow diagnosis, they said.
To think I used to eat recycled chicken poop. Yuck. The things these people do!
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Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper. -- 2 Chronicles 20:20
Who's Really Mad--The Cow or Us?
Over 30 countries have banned U.S. beef products, accounting for more than 90 percent of beef exports. Unfortuneately our government continues to play down the issue encouraging consumers to purchase and eat this highly suspect article of food.
At the same time the powers that be say there is no evidence that the disease can be transmitted through cow's milk and insists that milk from a diseased cow is safe.
In the U.S. the gross receipts from the sale of cattle and calves in 2000 totaled $40.76 billion, accounting for 21 percent of all agricultural receipts. This makes the beef sector the largest single agricultural enterprise.
The article questions how much confidence can be placed in government agencies that hold such a vested interest in the continued sale of these products.
~Suzanne~
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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie
[This message has been edited by Sister Glass (edited 02-02-2004).]
If someone had told me that I would give up lobster or pork chops I would have laughed them in the face, including God. When we grow up living and eating a certain way, we do not see that there can or could be another way.
The Bible says the "people perish for lack of knowledge of God." Everyday I thank my Father for the truths that we have been blessed with, even though at times I do stumble from time to time.
It is like those that were raised in the SDA church, they have known no other way. Some who were raised pure vegetarians could never think of biting down on flesh of an animal.
Today I could never dream of eating lobster or pork chops. I gave up beef years ago, but yet I still need help from God to not eat chicken or turkey and an occasional lamb chop.
We are already on that the road where we no longer can take the risks of even eating these clean meats. There just is not enough inspectors to keep up with the demand aof the inspections to be sure that what we are eating is safe.
For many SDA's giving up clean meats is a hard sell because we are told in the Word that we can eat it. Many just have not gotten to the point where the SOP has shown us that there has to be a day that we have to do so.
Liane
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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie
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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie
Read it all at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4489684/
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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie
Worried that a foreign embargo on U.S. beef will ruin the state's cattle industry, state lawmakers may soon introduce legislation to make California the first state to set broader and faster testing for mad cow disease.
Read it all at: http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/agriculture/story/8491741p-9420617c.html
The U.S. government is repeating the efforts of England in an effort to calm the fears of eating meat. Japan has enough sense to realize the need to test each cow, but the U.S. says there is no need. The present system is good enough.
The question as to the condition of the Washington State cow is being covered up in this attempt to quiet fears. Seattle Times
Even on 3ABN and Adventist evangelism, we find references to the normal use of products containing animal when we could be using alternative products that contain no animal parts. If we are to come apart and be seperate, we will appear "fanatical" even to our fellow church members. But we must do so in order to obey what we know to be right and correct in accordance with the counsel given.
The following are links to sites that present a true picture of the growing problem. This one problem (prions in animal products) has the capability of infecting from both food and medicinal venues. Will we believe and follow man or God?
For up-to-date links to BSE/CWD/CJD disease:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm
BSE has been in the US since 1985 CONFIRMED!:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1826023&dopt=Abstract
Temperatures over 1,200 degrees F incapable of destroying prions:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10716712&dopt=Abstract
Mad pigs? (in US):
http://www.cyber-dyne.com/~tom/mad_pigs.html
Mad mink? (in US):
http://www.priondata.org/data/A_tme.html
CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) in deer (in US) & deaths of hunters:
http://cfapp.rockymountainnews.com/cwd/killer/index.cfm
Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine on Madcow:
http://www.pcrm.org/health/prevmed/madcow_facts.html
Tons of information on Madcow & other diseases from milk:
http://www.notmilk.com/
International Meat Crisis PDF on-line book:
http://www.worldincrisis.org/Harvestime-Books/International-Meat-Crisis.pdf
Madcow USA PDF on-line book:
http://www.prwatch.org/books/madcow.html
What is in the (non-meat) foods your eating?:
http://remnant-online.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000086.html
Questions?
Got milk?
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Bill Wennell
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
Generally we keep our discussions dealing with difficulties in the church in the SDA forums. In this case it is good to have this post here in a public forum. It is not enough for Sevneth-day Adventists to understand this issue. The church did indeed take a wrong position on the matter. There is no safety in eating any animal products. It is a very risky business today.
For the sake of those who do not know, who have not seen the light the church has been given it is our responsibility to provide the information we have been blessed to receive.
Over a hundred years ago, God sent a prophet into our world and told us "the time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the increase of wickedness among men. The time is near when, because of the iniquity of the fallen race, the whole animal creation will groan under the diseases that curse our earth."
"Soon" and "near" were many years ago. The world can now see without the words of a prophet that the time has come when all aniimal products are a very real risk to our health and our very life.
Ten years ago before England declared BSE a human risk we had begun warning the public that it was. Today, all may know that transmissible sprongiform disease is a risk to human life and that it comes from animals.
Thanks again for your informative post. We appreciate your fellowship with us online.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2005/2005-06-13-01.asp
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
The Food and Drug Administration promised in January 2004 to close loopholes in a ban on putting cattle remains in cattle food, but it has failed to act. The government calls the ban a "firewall" against the spread of mad cow disease. Eating the mad cow disease protein is the only way cows are known to get this disease.
Loopholes include allowing ground-up cattle remains to be fed to chickens, and chicken litter is fed back to cattle; cattle blood can be fed to cattle and often comes in the form of milk replacement for calves; restaurant leftovers, which include the spent oil used in frying french fries, etc., are allowed in cattle feed; factories are not required to use separate production lines and equipment for feed that contains cattle remains and feed that does not. --Source Associated Press, June 18, 2005.
Comment: Let us be reminded that it is grossly unnatural and dangerous to feed blood and animal remains to cattle, which are natural herbivores (vegetarian). This and other intensive, risky, production-driven farming practices have given rise to various chronic, insidious and complex groups of diseases.
Suzanne
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 06-20-2005).]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-25-mad-cow-japan_x.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
"The cow, a "downer" that could not walk, was delivered last November to a plant where animals unfit for human consumption are killed. The department has not identified the owner or the plant.
The cow's type of breed was mislabeled, possibly because the animal had been soiled heavily with manure, and its tissues were mixed with tissues from other cows, Clifford said."
How that poor thing must have suffered.
Of course all must realize that this is the slaughter plant what are called rendering plants where all kinds of animals, from cows, dogs, cats gottn from shelters where they have been killed to all kinds of wildlife are cooked into a broth, where the meat and fat are separated after cooking in very high heat.
The meat is sold to facilities that make dog and cat food that we buy in our markets for our pets. The fat is used in everything from dog and cat food to cosmetics, lotions, etc.
These plants are one of the most unknown industry that makes big money from our unwanted and discared pets. 40 million dogs and cats were destroyed all over the United States last year.
Must make one think.
Liane, the Zoo Mama
Other countries have good reason to mistrust our meat. We have NO reliable testing whatsoever.
[This message has been edited by WendyForsyth (edited 06-26-2005).]
Now what they could do is have a testing system of herds before they are even sent for slaughter. Select a number of cows to be killed and tested before they even leave the ranch or farm.
That is what they had to do in England to get a handle on it. With testing on the farms they ended up destroying thousands of cows before they ever left for market.
Liane, the Zoo Mama
There are no protective guidelines for animal food. The rest of the animals get by and we never know if they have a disease or not, sent out for humans to eat.
Today it is allowed for the butchers to cut away the cancer parts of the meat and sell the rest for humans to eat. The discared meat with the cancer is sold to the rendering plants for dog and cat food with this meat and other things such as cosmetics, lotions, etc. from the animal fat.
Liane, the Zoo Mama
People inside the industry have testified that there is no testing of animals for human consumption at all. Just the ones that are downers and all of those are designated for animal consumption or other products.
[This message has been edited by WendyForsyth (edited 07-02-2005).]
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/reuters081605.cfm
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051003/NEWS03/510030324/1007/BUSINESS
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/vulnerable100505.cfm
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
bible4u@localnet.com
http://start.localnet.com/article.php?article=D8D9N2P80.html
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
bible4u@localnet.com
Knowing the truth makes one very unhappy with such men and their spurious reasoning. Japan test every cow. The U.S. will not allow anyone to test every cow before it is sold. The U.S. is continuing to pressure Japan to buy cows that one day we will know have BSE. Shame on the USDA. Test every cow and then we will know how many cows have BSE. And, how about the sheep and other animals being raised for food?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060314/ap_on_he_me/mad_cow
Go figure!
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
Thanks for taking a stand on the issue. As a USDA meat inspector, you are in a position to have influence with many and I know that God will bless you for your efforts. You may not find out in this world, but in the next you will discover some that had their eyes opened on this topic and it led them to the Truth in Christ.
Lesson to be learned according to the U.S. ag people. Don't eat Japanese cows.
Real lesson to be learned. Don't trust those who are selling you an ag product in the U.S. Unless the ag community steps up to the plate and is honest, watch out. Where there is deception in one area, you can expect it in other areas. It is character.
Japanese test each cow for BSE. Unless they are importing meat from the U.S., your chances of eating a mad cow in Japan are many times less than in the U.S.
Here is the article by Cyndi Young
I guess it is getting tricky for the cattle and poultry people. Which way to I go? Both are in for financial trouble. It is like butter or margerine? Good idea to consider carrots?
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
I do have a couple of questions. What do your bosses think of your out of work activities? Any backlash? And what about other inspectors, do they keep eating meat?
Good luck with the talk and sermon. Wish I lived closer.
Brother Sherwin
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0315/p02s01-uspo.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202240.html
I am posting some articles in here for the second time as I want to call attention to the web links in the first post above!
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
From the Spirit of Prophecy:
"Often animals are taken to market and sold for food, when they are so diseased that their owners fear to keep them longer. And some of the processes of fattening them for market produce disease. Shut away from the light and pure air, breathing the atmosphere of filthy stables, perhaps fattening on decaying food, the entire body soon becomes contaminated with foul matter." {CD 385.2}
"Animals are often transported long distances and subjected to great suffering in reaching a market. Taken from the green pastures and traveling for weary miles over the hot, dusty roads, or crowded into filthy cars, feverish and exhausted, often for many hours deprived of food and water, the poor creatures are driven to their death, that human beings may feast on the carcasses." {CD 385.3}
Do you see this at the slaughter plants?
Liane, the Zoo Mama
No backlash yet as they don't know and I don't make it a habit to tell them. However, I am getting requests for more and more radio talk shows - this could be financial suicide but God requires a cross through which we can learn to depend and lean on Him and I must be ready to state the truth as it is in Jesus. Pray for me, I'm going to need it!
Liane,
I work at a small mom & pop operation serving local farmers, but what Ellen White is true. I'm sure we all see the cattle trucks on the highway taking cattle many miles in cramped conditions to be slaughtered at some big industrial facility as if they didn't know what was going on. Their scared, I won't ever eat meat!
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
[This message has been edited by Bill Wennell (edited 03-20-2006).]
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Bill Wennell
USDA Meat & Poultry Inspector
BiblicalTruths2000@Juno.com
Here is what is going on with urine and feces (manure you put on your lettuce) from mad cows, mad sheep, and mad deer.
"Rexroad says all solid waste, animal carcasses and tissues, are incinerated. Rexroad says the thing that's at issue is the liquid waste from the animals, such as feces and urine...Rexroad says the liquid waste goes into a treatment tank, and no liquid waste can leave the plant until it is treated. Rexroad says the liquid waste is treated with heat the 'with scientific research assures us effectively deactivates the prions.' The E-P-A raised concerns that the N-A-D-C was only treating the liquid waste with bleach." Radio Iowa
The world faces a pandemic of mad cow disease that may rival HIV. And the British must accept the blame for spreading the disease - perhaps as far as Australia.
The recent mad cow disease precautions taken by the Australian and New Zealand authorities are in stark contrast to those of their counterparts in Europe where the disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), has spread to cattle in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
It was in 1996 that Britain announced that meat products from BSE- infected cattle were linked to a new form of incurable human spongiform encephalopathy - new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD). Even as that link was made public, British policies were spreading BSE across the globe, resulting in a man-made disaster which has the potential to put the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the shade. The human death toll is approaching 100, with 88 of them being nvCJD fatalities in Britain. Predictions vary on whether BSE- contaminated cattle produce will eventually claim a thousand, tens of thousands, or even millions of human lives.
BSE emerged from a post-World War II British strategy to increase the milk yield of dairy herds by feeding the cows protein-rich pellets made from the meat and bones extracted from animal waste accumulated at abattoirs and boning plants, and also from the leftovers discarded by butchers, restaurants and knackeries. Aided by deregulation of the meat-rendering industry in the late 1970s, the strategy transformed Britain's cattle from BSE-free herbivores into BSE-infected carnivores. From 1985, when a mystery disease now known as BSE emerged in Daisy, a dairy cow from Kent, the annual number of BSE-infected cattle rose to 731 within the space of three years. By 1989, 400 new cases appeared each week, and by 1992, 100 new cases appeared each day.
British authorities began reassuring national and international audiences in 1989 that mad cow disease was under control. In the same year, they also gathered scientists from the world's major laboratories engaged in human and animal spongiform disease research, together with a number of respected neurovirologists, to seek advice.
The solutions put forward by the experts shaped the events which have effectively spread mad cow disease across the globe. The experts were sworn to secrecy, notably regarding the export of cows and contaminated feed worldwide. One, Dr Laura Manuelidis, physician and professor of neuroscience at Yale University, proposed that the epidemic could swiftly be brought to a close with the immediate cull of infected herds. Britain's attitude to the Manuelidis solution was, in her words, penny-wise, pound-foolish, and her idea was dismissed on the grounds that compensation for the owners of the herds was financially out of the question.
From then onwards, the global spread of mad cow disease went into full swing. Britons were placed at risk of nvCJD when an estimated 700,000 BSE-infected cattle entered their food chain, chiefly because the animals' slaughter age, usually three years, was below the age at which they would show signs of BSE infection.
Next, the duplicity of the British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, known as MAFF, exposed mainland Europeans to an unknown quantity of BSE-contaminated veal among the 2 million calves transported to European saleyards between 1990 and 1995.
MAFF sabotaged a 1990 Brussels ruling designed to prevent the spread of BSE outside Britain when it issued civil servants with secret orders to skip the computer vetting of calves designed to exclude BSE-infected animals. The globalisation story gets worse. For eight years, debt-burdened Third World countries were lured to buy attractively low-priced BSE-suspect meat and the same animal protein-enriched pellets believed responsible for Britain's BSE problems. Ultimately, the dumping of BSE-implicated produce, considered unfit for sale in Britain, will be recorded as another shameful chapter of British imperialism. The French Minister for Agriculture, Jean Glavany, sees it exactly in those terms, and recently commented that "morally, they should be judged for that one day. They even allowed themselves the luxury of banning the use of such feed [in Britain] while allowing it to be exported." Already there are reports of nvCJD-like illnesses in South Africa, Pakistan, and India. The United Arab Emirates has banned the importation of beef from Pakistan because of the BSE threat. One thing is certain, as the World Health Organisation and Professor Manuelidis have recently underlined, the social and environmental costs of a BSE-contaminated food chain in developing regions will far outweigh the multibillion-dollar estimates of Europe's present BSE-related crises.
Nor did the globalisation story stop with Europe and Third World countries. In the thirst for greater and greater market profits through hybrid strains, more than 2,000 British cattle were exported post- 1992 to the four corners of the world, including to Australia, for breeding purposes. Cattle from British BSE-suspect herds can be found on stud farms close to Bowral in NSW and close to Ballarat in Victoria. To the naked eye, the Scottish longhorns appear magnificently healthy, but the fact remains that they made their way to Australia after 1990 when the Federal Government banned the importation of British cattle. That the animals arrived in Australia from Britain by way of Argentina in 1992 does not in any way alter their threat to the Australian meat industry, and ultimately the nation's food security. Nor does it exclude Australia's potential contribution to the globalisation of mad cow disease when the offspring of these truly illegal immigrants are exported elsewhere for breeding.
At the dawn of 2001, the world faces an unprecedented catastrophe due to Britain's man-made BSE disaster. The message from Canberra, like the messages from Europe over the past decade, is that the situation is in hand. Supposedly, Australia farming practice has never exposed cattle to the BSE perils of cattle protein-enriched pellets, but some States do permit cattle to be turned into carnivores via pellets made from the powdered remains of chicken, kangaroo, pig, horse, poultry and fish. Until we bite the bullet to address the perils of human interference with nature and bring about absolute compliance with import regulations, Australians too risk the myoclonic jerks of nvCJD.
This cruel disease silently eats away at the brain over years to rob humans of their every means of communication; the ability to hear, see, and speak. Gone, too, is the understanding of written and spoken native language, and with it every scrap of dignity. Tradition places women in every region of the world at the greatest risk of nvCJD, because their kitchens and associated knife injuries are a far more efficient means of transmitting the disease than exposure to suspect meat or animal-based beauty creams.
Animals and humans have paid an unacceptable price for the man- made BSE pandemic. Now it is time to end the mentality which has placed profit ahead of public welfare and animal integrity, and which has spread the terrible repercussions around the globe.
The presence of BSE prion infectivity in asymptomatic cattle and its tissue distribution are important concerns for both human and veterinary health and food safety. In this work, a collection of tissues from asymptomatic cattle challenged orally with BSE and culled at 20, 24, 27, 30 and 33 months have been used to inoculate intracerebrally BoPrP-Tg110 mice expressing bovine PrP to assess their infectivity. Results demonstrate that BSE infectivity in asymptomatic cattle is essentially restricted to the nervous system, Peyer's patches and tonsils, as reported previously for terminally BSE-diseased cattle. BSE infectivity was detectable in Peyer's patches and tonsils at all time points analysed, but infectivity in nervous tissues (brainstem and sciatic nerve) was only detectable after 27 months from inoculation. Infectivity in brainstem increased markedly at 33 months after inoculation. All other investigated tissues or fluids (spleen, skeletal muscle, blood and urine) revealed no detectable infectivity throughout the time course studied. source
The question is, how many gets past undetected when only a extremely small handful are tested out of many millions processed?
"This form of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is not contagious, and is different from Classic BSE, which has been linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in people."
An "expert" who tells us not to be concerned about eating BSE meat. Reminds me of England's Minister of Health who said the same about their infected cattle. Soon thereafter people started dropping dead from eating the infected cattle.
The USDA only tests a very small percentage of the cows in the US. They find very few with BSE. They found one in 2017 and another in 2018. Neither "entered the foodchain" so all is well. And, I have a bridge to sell.;D