SCI/TECH: Mad Cow Madness

Many years ago I noticed grocery beef smelled like pork and had no flavor like beef that I remembered from growing up in eastern Colorado. So I found a meat market in town that buys from a local slaughter outfit that only takes beef from local ranchers, no feedlots. The beef is used by restaurants and is "choice". It is the flavor I remember and I think it is safer as the animals graze on their normal food, they are not fed "feed" that is manufactured with who knows what in it. It costs a little more but I found that meat is not necessary with every meal or even every day. I have a very good steak about every two months and am satified with better flavor and a chance of being a lot safer than buying grocery beef.

Originally posted by Alikospah
... I found a meat market in town that buys from a local slaughter outfit that only takes beef from local ranchers, no feedlots. The beef is used by restaurants and is "choice". It is the flavor I remember and I think it is safer as the animals graze on their normal food, they are not fed "feed" that is manufactured with who knows what in it. ...and am satified with better flavor and a chance of being a lot safer than buying grocery beef.

I agree with you about the flavor - but given the nature of prions, this problem goes waayyy beyond the beef industry.

...Prions are present in urine, blood, and milk, not just meat - so that means they are present in our soil and water.

Prions hitchhike on viruses and other microbes, as well as insects.

Because the problem never was addressed, we now are dealing with a crisis that has grown far, far beyond its original dimensions.


loam posted 2 excellent articles on the last page that I think need to be here:

Originally posted by loam

Here are a few new articles concerning prions:

Prions Rapidly 'Remodel' Good Protein Into Bad, Brown Study Shows

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Two Brown Medical School biologists have figured out the fate of healthy protein when it comes in contact with the infectious prion form in yeast: The protein converts to the prion form, rendering it infectious. In an instant, good protein goes bad...

This quick-change “mating” maneuver sheds important light on the mysterious molecular machinery behind prions, infectious proteins that cause fatal brain ailments such as mad cow disease and scrapie in animals and, in rare cases, Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease and kuru in humans.

Because similar protein self-replication occurs in neurodegenerative diseases, the findings, published in the latest issue of Nature, may also help explain the progression of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases...

Satpute-Krishnan said the speed of protein conversion was surprising. “The prions were taking all the existing protein and refolding it immediately,” she said. “It’s a very, very rapid change...”

“Just a small amount of prion-state protein can rapidly convert healthy protein into a pathogenic form...”

And another...

NIAID Scientists Characterize the Most Infectious Prion Protein Particles

A new study of prions—apparently malformed proteins that initiate deadly brain diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans—has yielded surprising information about how the size of prions relates to their infectivity. Scientists have found that small prions are much more efficiently infectious than large ones, yet there also is a lower size limit, below which infectivity is lost.

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[edit on 11-9-2005 by loam]

There are a number of cattle concerns in Colorado that breed and raise their own cattle and have for generations. They are up to date on the Mac Cow danger and keep a closed system as far as I can tell. They have worked hard to raise animals that are healthy and free of disease. Since I am a beef eater not willing to go vegetarian just yet, a little investigation can go a long way toward self defense.
I realize there are many who live in cities where such meat markets are unavailable or untruthful. That truly is a problem but I have found there are cattle concerns who are online, that sell beef online and advertise they are mad cow free.
search.yahoo.com...
We can still exercise choice if we are careful and aware.
I have never been very trusting of fast food and with it becoming more popular and moving in everywhere. I question their safety and cleanliness standards so I don't go fast food at all. I see there is a book published now saying some of the things I have been aware of for years about fast food and meat packing practises. We need to be informed and aware.

Good info A. Thanks.

Still, Mad Cow is NOT mainly about beef and the cattle industry.

Prions are loose in the environment, and are spread in many ways -
not just in feed or beef.



PS. Can you fix your link, please?

A neighbor just died of C.J.D. How strange it is that here it Oklahoma and 28 other states, it's not even required reporting to the CDC in Atlanta. I think it is much more widespread than the gov't is acknowledging. As a chemist, I do believe that prions exist.

U.S. probes possible mad cow case

The agency received an inconclusive test result on Friday, chief veterinary medical officer John Clifford said in a notice posted on the department's website on Saturday. ..."This inconclusive result does not mean we have found a new case of BSE," he said. And even if the animal does prove to have mad cow disease, he said, it didn't get into the human food chain or the animal feed chain. ...The USDA is following up with more detailed tests at a government lab in Ames, Iowa.

"The results of those tests will be released as soon as they have all been completed, within the next four to seven days," Clifford said.

***

U.S. mad cow case was Texas-born

The USDA says the cow was killed at a pet food plant after it was determined to be unfit for human consumption. ...Officials say the 12-year-old cow couldn't stand on its own feet.

A Mad Cow case has been confirmed in Alabama, following another confirmation in Texas in June of 2005.

The USA has a national herd of 100 million cattle. Before 2004, only 20,000 cattle were tested annually for mad cow disease - almost all "downer" cattle, although animals are infected for years without symptoms. About 100,000 to 1,000,000 animals per year are "downers." The number of animals tested now has been raised to about 384,000 per year.

Mad Cow Case confirmed in Alabama

U.S. investigators have found two previous cases of mad cow disease. The first was in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state. The second was last June in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.

***

A cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department confirmed Monday, the third case in the U.S.
Alabama cow tests positive for mad cow disease

Mad cow disease has gone undetected in the US for many years just because the lack or lax laws imposed to testing.

Unless a cow falls death on the ground they would not get tested.

So if cows keep dying in more numbers you can bet your life that they are infested and has been infested for quite sometime.

But I wonder what the government will do to protect no the consumer but the meat industry.

Will they put a gag order on the cows [just a joke] so they don't tell they are sick, or will they make it a thread to national security to disclosure any information of mad cow disease found in our meat supply.

Now a days you can expect anything.

We are expendable but losing billions on the meat markets is not.

[edit on 13-3-2006 by marg6043]

Just like Bird Flu.

Don't test, don't find.

Nothing to talk about.

Thanks to loam for this find:

Tracking Prions: Method to detect infectious proteins in soils
could help monitor spread of the diseases they cause

A method to extract and quantitatively detect prions from soil samples has been devised
by a team of scientists at two National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) labs in France
(Environ. Sci. Technol. 2006, 40, 1497).

The technique could be "a good starting point" to help identify and map prion-contaminated farmland
as well as to monitor the fate of prions over time...

INRA is looking at using the method for general environmental monitoring of prions
and possibly expanding the method for decontamination of medical devices.

Mad Cow is in the news again, this time in Manitoba.

Potential case of mad cow disease found in Manitoba

Dr. Wayne Lees, chief veterinary officer for Manitoba, said the animal, from the Interlake area, was born well before 1997, when Canada imposed a ban on the type of feed associated with BSE.

...Lees said the animal was showing signs of BSE — including difficulty walking. The owner had it euthanized and it was sent for inspection. ...Preliminary screening tests conducted by the provincial government and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency detected the potential case of BSE.

Also of interest:

Alzheimer's deterioration may go unnoticed in some seniors

People can have the brain deterioration that comes with Alzheimer's disease without showing debilitating symptoms, a new study finds. ...Researchers in the U.S. studied the brains of 134 clergy who donated their bodies to science. They were in their 80s on average when they died.

None had clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's before they died, but 37 per cent showed lesions on the brain associated with the disease, a research team reported in Tuesday's issue of the journal Neurology.

"It means that a large number of people can accumulate all of this disease pathology and still be functioning very well," said study author Dr. David A. Bennett of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago.

A brief review of the information contained in this thread will put a clearer perspective on claims that cows can be genetically engineered to prevent prion disease.

Not possible. Every prion disease is caused by a different prion - and industry creates new prions and prion strains as common byproducts - or purposeful ones, in the case of pharmaceuticals.

Ie., see: Genetically Engineered Mad-Cow Resistance

.

Well, Soficrow, you and I are pretty much in agreement on this issue. (G.W. not) I had a neighbor who developed C.J.D. in October 2005. By Christmas 2005 he was dead. C.J.D. is believed to be the human variant of Mad Cow disease I believe, and can lay dormant for many years. I am quite perturbed that the C.D.C. allegedly does not track C.J.D. cases, so just how many really occur per year? I read that many Alzheimer's cases upon closer examination turned out to be a form of C.J.D.

You seem to have a great many posts on the Mad Cow disease, etc. Do you have any idea why these human cases are not followed better by the health authorities?

[edit on 29-1-2007 by TheAvenger]

Many 21st century's humans have slower reflexes than humans from earlier eras due to mad cow diseases.