U.S. suspects another case of mad cow

[KipWellsFan]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200...anns050610.html

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it is investigating another possible case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy [bSE], also known as mad cow disease.

 

In a news conference held late Friday evening, the USDA said the beef cow did not enter the human food or feed chain.

 

A spokesman for the USDA says additional tests will be needed before it can be confirmed whether it is a case of mad cow disease.

 

Mike Johanns, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

 

Johanns says science has proven Canadian and U.S. beef is safe. He says all sides, including his own, should recognize that.

 

"We have confirmed that Canada's safeguards are effective and Canadian beef is safe. This is not guesswork, it's not magic, and it's not politics. It's science," he said.

 

Johanns says Canada is responding by expanding its capacity and the U.S. will lose out.

[Balta1701]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200...anns050610.html

The reality of the mad cow situation in this nation is an absolute mess.

 

Other nations test every single cow, or every single "downer" cow (cows that can't walk) for the disease. Other nations have far better testing equipment. Other nations make much more certain that cow parts aren't fed to other cattle, which is one major method of transmission.

 

This nation doesn't even test every single downer cow. Cows that can't walk (one of the first symptoms of the disease) still make it into the food supply. Quite often in fact. If there really was another case, the U.S. almost certainly wouldn't know about it.

 

In Japan, they instituted a program where they would test every cow, and they found multiple cows that were infected but showed no symptoms. In Britain, where it first started hitting, a few years after they had ignored the problem, people started turning up sick and dead.

 

That is what I fear will happen here.

 

The Cattle industry gives heavy political donations to the Republican party. The people running the regulatory agencies are literally lobbyists for the cattle industry. This situation won't change until people start dying.

 

A year or so ago there was a farmer who wanted to test all of his cattle so that they could fetch a higher price on the open market. The lobbyists who run the regulatory agencies genuinely would not let him do that. They forced him to not test every one of his cattle, as is required to sell the beef in many countries.

 

That is how corrupt this industry is. Eventually, it's going to cost a lot of lives. We can still maybe stop it now. A few years from now, it'll be too late.