AR-News: (NC) Mad cow fears have abated, but it's uncertain the risk is any less

[MEATSTINKS at aol.com]

Guest editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times, January 20, 2004

CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Mad cow fears have abated, but it's uncertain the risk is 
any less
http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/editorial/48529
By Terri David
The public relations strategy to calm fears about mad cow disease, known as 
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), seems to be working. Famous and not so 
famous people are eating beef in solidarity with the cattle industry, and 
sales are steady. Mainstream media has, for the most part, dutifully regurgitated 
USDA and industry press releases, assuring the public that beef is safe. 
Scientists are not so certain.
Meat from the infected cow entered the human food supply. The brain, 
intestines and spinal cord were removed prior to processing, but contrary to what the 
USDA is saying, eating the muscle is still a risk. Stanley Prusiner, the 
scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of prions through 
which BSE is transmitted, described the levels of prions in muscles as "quite 
high." The New England Journal of Medicine published research concurring with 
Prusiner's findings. In Europe, scientists have recognized that transmissible 
spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) jump the species barrier. This is the family 
of diseases to which mad cow disease belongs. Europe has banned the feeding 
of animals to animals, but in the U.S., the practice is legal and universal. 
Cattle tissue thought to be suspect is fed to chickens and pigs, and their 
remains are often rendered into cattle feed, possibly cycling BSE back to cows. Dr. 
Paul Brown, medical director for the U.S. Public Health Service, says that 
pigs and chickens could pass TSEs directly to humans. Blood cells also carry 
prions, yet it is still standard practice in the U.S. to feed cow's blood to 
calves to wean them from their mother's milk.
In 1997, the industry made a minor concession. The feeding of ruminants to 
ruminants was banned. However, in 2002, the U.S. General Accounting Office 
released a report stating that the FDA had failed to enforce the feed ban, and may 
have already "placed U.S. herds and, in turn, the human food supply at risk." 
Hundreds of feed suppliers were found to be in violation of the ban. 
Veterinarians and other scientists who monitor the cattle industry have been saying 
that mad cow disease has been in the U.S. for years. It is not surprising that it 
has taken so long for the first case to turn up. The U.S. tested less than 2 
percent of downed cows (animals too sick or lame to walk) over the last 
decade, and only increased testing to about 10 percent in 2003. One study showed 
that downer cows were up to 250 times more likely to test positive for mad cow 
disease. In Europe and Japan, where testing is much more pervasive, the disease 
was even found in animals that appeared to be perfectly healthy. Due to scant 
testing, no one knows how many infected cows may have already entered the U.S. 
food supply.

If mad cow disease is here in the U.S., why haven't we seen the human form 
called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD)? It seems that the government's 
attitude is that if you don't look for it, you won't find it. The Centers for 
Disease Control (CDC) has not required that CJD be a notifiable disease. Thus, 
when a case is discovered, no one is required to report it to the CDC. Also, 
many doctors are reluctant to do autopsies on suspected CJD patients because 
of its highly infectious nature. Two studies done on Alzheimer's patients 
showed that 5.5 percent and 13 percent, respectively, of patients diagnosed with 
Alzheimer's had actually been suffering from CJD. The National Foundation for 
Infectious Diseases states that one out of every million people gets CJD, 
thereby giving the U.S. about 270 cases. If just 1 percent of the 4 million 
Alzheimer's patients have been misdiagnosed, that would mean we have 40,000 cases of 
CJD, not just 270. It would not be unreasonable to think that this possible 
epidemic would include variant CJD. To complicate matters, some scientists now 
believe that infected beef may be causing classical CJD, and humans may be able 
to carry the disease, but not show symptoms. Researchers have stated: 
"Subclinical human carriers might pose a serious risk for contamination of surgical 
instruments, tissue transplants and blood products."
The cattle industry is very powerful, and they have been able to resist 
tougher regulations until now. Don't be fooled by the disingenuous rhetoric that 
the beef supply is safe. The industry has only agreed to stricter regulations 
because they have lost the export market, and they fear a panic in the domestic 
market. The new rules still leave gaping holes that endanger the public. The 
USDA's prime purpose is to market agricultural products, and their allegiance 
is to industry. The fact that Ann Veneman appointed Dale Moore, former chief 
lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, to be her chief of staff 
indicates exactly where the USDA's loyalties lie.
Terri David has a B.S. in psychology from the University of Wisconsin and an 
MBA from Northwestern University. She lives in Asheville, and has been a 
long-time vegetarian.
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