After Delays, Vaccine to Counter Bad Beef Is Being Tested

[groovedaddy]

(Yikes! More drugs for human consumed animals. If I remember right from the film "Food, Inc.", if cattle are grass fed for 2 weeks before slaughter, e coli isn't a problem. gd)

HOLYOKE, Colo. — Jason Timmerman coaxed a balky calf into a chute on his feedlot one recent afternoon and jabbed a needle into its neck. He was injecting the animal with a new vaccine to make it immune to a dangerous form of the E. coli bacteria.

The calf and thousands of others are part of a large-scale test to see whether animal vaccines are an answer to one of the nation’s most persistent food-safety problems.

The test has been a long time coming. Bureaucratic delays in Washington stalled the arrival of the vaccines for years, even as people continued to become sick and die from eating tainted beef. And now, even if the vaccines prove successful in the ambitious tests that are just getting under way, they face an uncertain future as farmers and feedlot owners worry about who will pick up the extra cost.

“I hope it works,” Mr. Timmerman said. “It probably won’t be so good for my pocketbook directly, but it’ll probably be good for the industry.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/business/04vaccine.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1259946049-UV48+f06ZOQHwxW34pAbaw

[Orrex]

1. Oh great. Now we'll have Jenny McCarthy campaigning on behalf autistic cattle.

Can't wait for the book deal.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. LOL

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. I remember what happened when Oprah went against Mad Cow

the industry went after her and she had to fight back.

[Orrex]

10. I remember what happened when Oprah made the anti-vax zealots seem credible

A whole bunch of uncritical thinkers decided that "former Playmate" equals "knowledgeable scientist."

[drm604]

3. This strikes me as a good thing.

Why do you feel that vaccinating cattle is a "yikes" thing?

[groovedaddy]

4. My understanding is that the use of anti-biotics in animals decreases the

effects for humans who consume them. Is it the same with vaccinating them? Besides, is it really necessary? Feed the cattle grass and the ecoli won't proliferate in their gut.

[trotsky]

6. No, antibiotics are not the same as vaccines. n/t

[drm604]

8. You're correct about the antibiotics,

there need to be laws greatly restricting the way they're used, but this has nothing to do with antibiotics. Vaccinating cattle won't cause E. coli resistance to either antibiotics or vaccines.

I've heard the grass thing. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but even if it's true I would think that a vaccine would be even more effective. Why not do both?

We're talking about protecting people. People can and do die from certain strains of E. coli. There just doesn't seem to be a downside to vaccinating cattle against those strains.

[Warpy]

7. Probably because it helps them survive that unnatural

few weeks on a feed lot, a foot deep in their own waste, crowded with nothing to do but eat grain, an unnatural foodstuff, to put on pure fat, which clogs the arteries of people who eat it.

Grass fed beef is very different. You can't just wave it over a fire and eat it. It needs to be cooked a long time, preferably with moisture, to make it tender enough for most of us.

Only when the cattle are made sick at the end of their lives by feeding them an unhealthy diet and reducing their ability to exercise do we get the kind of "marbled" beef that can be eaten rare. Unfortunately, that type of finishing also allows them to pick up diseases that kill us more quickly than the fat does if the meat isn't cooked completely.

This vaccination will probably prolong the lives of people who absolutely insist on eating bloody meat. However, it does nothing for the poor cattle and the deplorable conditions they're kept in and the meat will continue to kill the people it eat it, although more slowly.

[trotsky]

5. A grain-based diet supposedly results in a more acidic digestive system for a cow.

This kills off the less-lethal regular E. coli and paves the way for the nasty stuff. Grass-fed cows have a less acidic stomach. I don't know if switching them to grass 2 weeks before slaughter would "fix" things. I don't view this vaccine as a bad thing, but the solution I would prefer is that all beef be grass-raised. That's what I buy and it's healthier and tastes much better than grain-fed.