10 countries ban U.S. beef

[CatWoman]

here we go....................

Dec. 24, 2003 | LONDON (AP) -- Fears about a suspected U.S. case of mad cow disease spread quickly abroad Wednesday, with 10 countries blocking the import of American beef after a cow in Washington state tested positive for the illness.

Japan, the world's top importer of U.S. beef in terms of value, imposed an indefinite ban and planned to recall certain meat products already on the market, while South Korea halted customs inspections of American beef and suspended sales for meat already on supermarket shelves.

Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia also banned the imports, as did the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.

http://salon.com/news/wire/2003/12/24/beef_ban/index.html

[opihimoimoi]

1. Get the guys name who first thought of feeding cattle anything other

than grass.grain.corn.

Who is this guy anyway??

The madness for profits produced this?? a Madness disease?? All because some idiot thought of upping the profit margins?

Money is the root of this one and we don't even know his name//

Was it Osama??

Saddam??

Most likely a Pub. Thats why we don't get to know his name, they are hiding.

Whoever he is(I assuming its a guy), he should be in the Hall of Shame for Bad Ideas.

[Journeyman]

2. Corporate greed has no one face. . .

it's usually a two-faced bastard. It lacks all morals, too. How else do you describe decisions that foster canibalism (feeding cattle to cattle), that then wonder when nature exacts a toll?

[Enraged_Ape]

4. No kidding

Surely SOME idiot is to blame for introducing modern cattle farming to this grossly shortsighted idea, and they probably patented this technique and are making loads of $$$ from it. And I'm willing to bet real money that this dude is not only a Republican, but one of Bush's Pioneers.

I, too, want this man's name.

[Yavin4]

6. Is Grass,Grain, or Corn

So friggin expensive that you have to develop an alternative?

[shanti]

7. seems like

the beef industry is only concerned with their profit margin. ground up cow would be a higher pm than alfalfa, corn, etc.

greedy bastards! :grr:

[The Zanti Regent]

16. Does anyone remember this?

http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/Week-of-Mon-20031027/008781.html

The US Soldier who was misdiagnosed, kicked out of the army and found to suffer from Mad Cow syndrome?

This guy isn't in Washington state.

Remember Joanie Weston, the Roller Derby Queen? She died from Mad Cow disease several years ago, too.

WHERE IS THE PRESS?????

[lebkuchen]

3. Living in isolation.....

America's forte.

[opihimoimoi]

5. Now its No exports of beef/products!!!!!?? Due to What?? Mad/// what was

that?? Mad Cow Disease??

Been around for 7 or 8 years now. Quite easy to prevent. Just make sure Cows are not cannibals. Make sure they eat only grass, hay, grain, leaves; no meat products, they are Vegetarians, not carnivores.

Hell we knew that! So why didn't we do something about it?? Especially when Canada just had it 3 years ago??

Who made this gamble, Bucking Mr Murphy and his damn odds.???

Who made the gamble to let restrictions slide??

How High did the decision go??

Why didn't the Pres and or his staff think about this very crucial aspect in our food supply...?

Were they distracted with the Quest for Spice?

And if they not protecting the food supply>> just What the Hell ARE they doing?

Now its gonna be BEEF GATE!!!!

[karlschneider]

8. Reviving an old campaign question: "What's the beef?"

As a certified old phart, I can happily recall the 'old days' when one could order a 'rare' hamburger and not worry if the cow had been eating other cows. That just ain't kosher. In more ways than one.

[Erika]

9. How About Caring For Animals?

What we've done in allowing greedy industry to profit from sick animals and allow them into the the food chain in unbelievable. How would you like your diet to consist of the remnants of a sick and dying human?

[lebkuchen]

20. Inspections for Mad Cow Lag Those Done Abroad

"You can go into any feed store and buy Calf Starter or calf milk substitute," said John Stauber, co-author of "Mad Cow U.S.A.," a 1997 book that warned that the disease could reach this country. "We're weaning calves on cattle blood proteins, even though we know blood plasma can carry the disease."

<snip>

Feed plants are inspected by the F.D.A., not the Department of Agriculture. In 2001, the F.D.A. was so short of inspectors that nearly a third of the country's 10,000 feed plants were not inspected.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1224-01.htm

Deregulation. The GOP loves it!

[NYC]

10. Ukraine, South Africa, and Chile

may have joined that list.

Also, there is a partial ban from Canada, and according to Haaretz, Israel will not import beef liver.

[jamesinca]

11. They need to ban this stuff.

bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is its name, it is also called mad cow disease. It is a disease similar to scrapie. It emerged in cattle in Great Britan in 1986, and by 1995 there had been 150,000 cases. This outbreak was traced to the use of cattle feed that contained contaminated bone meal from scrapie-infected sheep carcasses (cross species spread) and BSE-infected cattle carcasses processed in a way that failed to destroy the infectivity of the infectious agent. The use of such cattle feed was prohibited in 1988. BSE has also been found in other European countries.

In 1996, a variant form of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease was recognized in the United Kingdom that occured in younger people and had distinctive pathologic characteristics similar to those seen in macaques infected with the BSE agent. The concern, whose validity is still unconfirmed, is that the BSE agent has spread to humans through ingestion of BSE-infected tissues.

It is a degenerative Central Nervous System (CNS) disease. It is described as subacute spongiform viral encephalopathies. It is caused by a thing know as a prion. It is not a virus or bacteria! They are sensitive to about 90% phenol, bleach, ether, acetone, iodine disinfectants and autoclaving. None of which can be done to humans without killing them. You can not put phenol or bleach into your veins or CNS.

There are several hallmarks of diseases casued by prions. They are confined to the nervous system. The basic lesion is a progressive vacuolation in neurons, an extensive astroglial hypertrophy and proliferation, and then a spongiform change in the gray matter. If making the brain look like a sponge is not enough, amyloid plaques may be present. Amyloid plaques are the same things that are present in Alzheimers disease. They have long incubation periods of months to decades, just like AIDS / HIV. This is followed by chronic progressive illness of weeks to years. The diseases are ALWAYS fatal, with no know remissions or recoveries. Ths host shows no inflammatory or immune response.

In short it can take years for this disease of the nervous system to start showing signs, it will present like Alzheimers disease and turn your brain into something that looks like a sponge or Swiss cheese. After the clinical manifestations appear, up to a decade later, it is usually weeks to months before death.

[Briar]

12. The god of de-regulation

"and BSE-infected cattle carcasses processed in a way that failed to destroy the infectivity of the infectious agent."

I can give you the name of the person responsible for this fatal link in the chain. Margaret Thatcher, whose far right government indulged in an orgy of de-regulation at the behest of their corporate bosses once they were elected (in the name of "freeing the people", as ever). Once de-regulated, the rendering plants took advantage of their new found "freedom" to reduce the temperature at which the carcasses were processed. It was so much cheaper and better for profits that way...

[SahaleArm]

13. Seattle Times - Officials rush to track meat, diseased cow

But many people were asking why the cow, which was unable to stand on its own, was slaughtered for food.

A USDA critic said the agency needs to be more aggressive in protecting public health and less concerned with the beef industry's bottom line.

"We have a continuing problem because the USDA was told by Congress on one day to promote the sale of agricultural commodities, and then they were told on another day to protect public health, and sometimes those two missions conflict," said Carol Tucker Foreman, head of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute.

For example, USDA officials said yesterday that they will not release information on which retail stores received potentially contaminated beef, relying instead on store owners to alert the public. The list of stores is considered "proprietary," said agency spokesman Dan Puzo.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001823247_madcow25.html

What a joke - this a f*cking public health issue and the USDA can't tell the public where this stuff is being sold?

----------

Better to buy meats here: http://www.nimanranch.com/

[Devils Advocate NZ]

17. Public Health Issue? No, you've got that all wrong!

This is a Corporate Health Issue. Releasing the names of stores that were supplied with infected beef would seriously affect the health of those stores. What happens to YOU is unimportant.

Remember, Die Korporation über allen!

[ConcernedCanuk]

14. Mad Cow is NOT new to the USA, they just got "caught"

. . protecting Korprate interests before it's citizens health

. . gee, who would have thought it ?

. . interesting (and very scary) book

Mad cow U.S.A.: Could the nightmare happen here? by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber



I think the answer is YES

[SahaleArm]

15. I don't think it was a corporate farm

The ranch owner, veterinarian Bill Wavrin, warily answered his door to a line of reporters yesterday, politely declining comment. But sources confirmed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had gathered Wavrin's records regarding the cow and had restricted cattle from being moved from the ranch.

Charlie Powell, a spokesman with the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, said he spoke to Wavrin yesterday morning about the case and the devastating impact it could have on his ranch and the nation's beef industry.

...

The ranch was started in 1989 and has 18 employees, according to Dunn and Bradstreet, a market-research firm. It did $3 million in sales last year, the report said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001823230_madcowfarms25m.html

[demdave]

18. MERRY CHRISTMAS

[vanityfair]

19. Well...

I guess "What goes around, comes around."