B.S.E. in U.S.A. - DON'T PANIC!

[carrie]

The United States Government has just confirmed the first ever case of B.S.E. in America.
It is one confirmed diagnosis in one cow and, as yet, no chain of infection has been established.
Don't Panic! The U.S. government is being very open and very honest to let the world know about this so early - chain of infection will cease and the source of infection will be found.
I will post more when I know more.

[popcornbird]

Yeah, I just read that on CNN...........

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/23/mad.cow/index.html

Hmmm..........

[luckies4me]

I agree with everything that article says. They need to be MORE strict with our meat cows. This is one reason I stay away from beef. The sad thing is that there HAS to be other cases out there, and there is. When we will find these, who knows.

The only thing I hate about this is the slaughter of the animals kept as pets, such as the horses, and pet cows etc. It's very sad, but if it has to be done then so be it. There is no other way.

[Cinder & Smoke]

Hi, Carrie!
And HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Refresh our memories...

HOW did B.S.E. (Mad Cow Disease) get to be such a
Huge Problem in the U.K.??

/s/ Phred

[lizbud]

Yes, I saw a story about it on the evening news tonight. It is
very scarey. They said there's almost no chance of humans
contracting the disease, but it's deadly for the animals. I feel so
bad for the suffering animals they show on t v. I hope they are
pts quickly and not allowed to suffer.

[luckies4me]

Originally posted by lizbud
Yes, I saw a story about it on the evening news tonight. It is
very scarey. They said there's almost no chance of humans
contracting the disease, but it's deadly for the animals. I feel so
bad for the suffering animals they show on t v. I hope they are
pts quickly and not allowed to suffer.

Me too. I hope it's humane unlike how they get slaughtered. I feel so bad for them, sigh.

[carrie]

Happy Holidays right back at you Phred! Hope you have a good one - I am !


B.S.E.....well there are journals and journals of scientific evidence to wade through and if anyone wants the lowdown on all that stuff I will try to stay sane enough to repeat it.

If not, here is the quick version....

Scrapies is an ancient disease in sheep that is a spongiform brain disease and has been known and ignored for many hundreds of years. Transfer to humans seems to be unknown so nobody worried too much about it ..... until... we humans decided that a good way to use the "scrap" bits of sheep was to feed them, after processing, to other sheep and to cattle. (I can not imagine, can not even dream, why this seemed like a good idea - but it happened). The spongiform then seemed to cross the species barrier and all hell let loose. Cattle in this country started to show signs of spongiform, these signs were dismissed and the spare bits of cows continued to be used as cow food ( how obviously wrong is that!!!!???) , human food (as beef burgers, sausages etc.) and as pet food. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy was finally recognised but the risk to humans was played down and the fact that vegetarian animals were being fed the remains of other vegetarian animals almost ignored. Any link to scrapies in sheep was also denied. The first big horror was a possible link between B.S.E. and C.J.D. in humans - CJD is a spongiform disease of the brain in humans. This was denied for many years.
To cut a very long and even more disturbing story short it is now recognised as "probable" that BSE (the cow disease) was caused by scrapies infected sheep being fed to cattle, cross species infection began (how could anyone think that feeding cows with sheep was a good idea???!!) and, rare and unlikely as it is, some people that ingested parts of cows infected with BSE developed CJD.
We have the largest number of CJD cases in the world and the predictions are that it will get a whole lot worse before it gets better....terrible disease and terribly handled - I believe that this will be something that future generations will look back on with horror and confusion.

[G.P.girl]

weeeeell..........i knew this would happen. alll the americans i know always said "oh no, it won't come to the states. that's only in europe. we're safe here" but i don't eat beef anyway

[Cinder & Smoke]

THANKS, Carrie!!

Guess it's going to be interesting to see how WE handle this...

Big question will be is it "just ONE cow" that is infected;
or has it already spread beyond easy control??

/s/ Phred

[KYS]

I saw it on the news today too.
So sad, I feel so bad for the animals and families that
own them.
I would like to know if our government will be able to
trace how the infected animal got the disease.

I remember how devasting it was in England, from
all the lost of animal live stock.

[lizbud]

I just watched a report on c-span given by the Secretary of Agriculture to a group of journalists. The single cow that was found with this disease actually went to slaughter anyway and was processed at two meat plants in Washington state. The muscle meat was sent on for human comsumpion & the nervous system ,bone and other non muscle tissue was sent to rendering. Guess what's made of animal renderings? Animal feed among other things. This makes no sense at all.

[Corinna]

Ok I don't want to start a fight but I wonder why the beef assocation is getting defensive when it was a holsten (dairy cow) that was affected. And where is the dairy assocation's voice on this? Carrie , refresh us is the milk from an affected animal also affected?
I hope it is contained to one cow not as it was in Europe I remember you being quarinted for so long. Glad your having a great year thsis year.

[Crikit]

What you have to hope is that the american government doesn't over react the way the Canadian one did. There was only one cow found here but all the cows in that herd were killed and so were a few dozen other herds (any herd that the infected cow could have come in contact with) ranchers, farmers, slaughter houses, meat packing plants, butchers and so on all suffered because of just one cow.

Heck the boarders are just now opening again to Canadain beef.

[joycenalex]

quote... The single cow that was found with this disease actually went to slaughter anyway and was processed at two meat plants in Washington state. The muscle meat was sent on for human comsumpion & the nervous system ,bone and other non muscle tissue was sent to rendering. Guess what's made of animal renderings? Animal feed among other things. This makes no sense at all. /QUOTE]
really? the holstein went to a processing plant? how amazing that an infected animal went to be made into meat. that's the end of beef for me. and i'm not the only one who will do that