"Mad Cow Disease" in the United States: Overblown?
Jose Reyes 1/18/04
On December, 23, 2003 the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) announced it had a confirmed case of "Mad Cow Disease", after a Holstein cow in Washington state was found to have contracted this brain diminishing disease. Records show that a herd of 81 Holstein cows, entered the U.S. from Canada in 2001 with this infected one. With 5 more cows from that original herd discovered in Connell, Washington on January 16, a total of 19 have been traced.
A Holstein cow is a
dairy cow and produces about 17, 408 pounds of milk yearly until it is sent to
the slaughterhouse. 
The
infected
cow was a "downer" cow which means that it entered the slaughterhouse
crippled, without the ability to walk on its own. For this reason, this Holstein
cow was tested for mad cow disease. The
cow was slaughtered, the brain, its
spinal cord and distal ileum were removed and discarded before it was sent out
to processing plants. The test results came back positive, but came back after
the cow was shipped out to the meat processing companies. As
soon as they received the results of the tests, the FDA and the USDA was informed. The cow
had been already distributed by the meat processing plants. A formal and official recall was
made immediately, www.fsis.usda.gov
and the word was out. DNA
tests were performed and results linked the cow to Alberta, Canada where it was
born, in 1997.
The FDA quarantined the Verns Moses Lake Meats in Moses Lake, Washington. The FDA ordered 129 cows from the farm killed and another 449 bull calves exterminated also, which included an offspring of the infected cow. The FDA and the USDA have taken all the right precautions and are working on strengthening all the current laws and regulations to combat this fatal disease. After the big outbreak in England where millions of cattle were killed and 143 died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is the human version, the United States placed strict laws on feeding procedures. In 1997 the FDA passed a feeding ban www.fda.com . Remember this is the first confirmed case of "Mad Cow" disease in U.S. history. The FDA extended the prohibition in 2001 to forbid use of all mammalian protein in ruminant feed. Following the new discovery more safeguards were made.
More Important Information: Click Here> WWW.FDA
Medical Definition of Mad Cow Disease:
A new disease of cattle, first reported in 1986 in Great Britain, characterized clinically by apprehensive behavior, hyperesthesia, and ataxia and histopathologically by spongiform changes in the gray-matter neuropil of the brain stem; it is thought to be caused by an agent, possibly a prion, similar to that observed as the cause of scrapie. Mad Cow Disease is the commonly used name for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). BSE is a slowly progressive, degenerative and fatal disease that affects the central nervous system of an adult cattle.
More Detailed Descriptions: Click Here> WWW.WHO.COM
Since 1990, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has conducted aggressive surveillance of the highest risk cattle going to slaughter in the United States, in which 10,000- 20,000 animals per year have been tested.
Feeders:
Feeder companies are the suppliers of food for the livestock companies and they also provide food for Hogs and for Poultry companies. When the USDA passed the law in 1997, prohibiting the cattle industry to feed their cattle livestock any MBM (Meat and Bone Meal), all the feeder companies did, was add a warning on their product stating "Do Not Feed Cattle". You see there hasn't been a connection of this disease with chickens and pigs. That is the loophole in this law. So the cattle companies are breaking the law and adding this feed to cows and getting away with it.
Conclusion:
We have the first case of "Mad Cow" and everybody is panicking so early into the investigation. More than 30 countries, including Mexico, are jumping to conclusions so early and are already temporarily banning meat products from the United States. The World media and the U.S. media are having a field day with this delicate issue. The vegetarian groups are getting the opportunity to attack the meat companies and that includes the poultry companies also. I say this is good, but if you investigate well, you will see that the whole problem here is the feeding process. There must be stronger and more aggressive laws and they must be more specific so they could plug up all the loopholes left behind. The transportation of cattle from other countries have to be monitored intensely. The Canadian government has to be more stern with there feeder companies also. There is a great responsibility here, let's not forget that when England realized what they had done wrong by feeding their livestock with MBM from slaughtered cows, they had 69 countries importing meat from them. Of course they didn't do it on purpose but they were in a way cheating, after all, a cow is officially considered a vegetarian.
I must say, when I started this article my main objective was to prove that this "Mad Cow" scare was overblown but after intensely investigating the subject and looking at all the pros and cons, I'm a little concerned here. It is a new disease and scientists are not even sure if its a Bacterium or if its a Virus (Read brief definition). The FDA and the USDA have to attack these feeder companies with full force and the public must have easier ways to find out what meat distribution company the meat they are buying came from, where the meat processing company bought the slaughtered cow and what was the name of the feeder company that provided the food to the cattle company. All this information should be available and in plain view, on the label of the purchased meat product. Also a list of all the cattle companies that broke the law and were caught, should be available and should be updated at least once a month and should be easy to access. Meanwhile, I will be looking hard into this to provide a list of all the companies that have been caught, since I'm a meat lover myself. I suggest everyone should stay away from fast food restaurants for the meantime and if you live on the west coast, I would stay away from meat altogether until you feel it is safe. Eat meat that comes from organic farms, this would be safer and healthier for you.
