Mad Cow disease in the US, is it still in Europe?

In article ,
milesh wrote:

Earl Evleth wrote:
Europe, a while back, instituted standard testing in the slaughter house for
infected beef. The US has not, it appears.

From what I have been hearing the US has been testing beef on a regular
basis since the early 1990's. Many regulations were changed since the
outbreak in the UK.


LOL -- they don't even test cattle that can't stand before sending it
to our tablej

they test about 1 in 20 downer cattle in the food supply -- and the
testing is not done to protect the consumer [that is the exact statement
by the USDA] it is done to provide statistical information [thus the
current downer cow that was the rare one tested had already been sent
out to hamburger, steaks and chops in multiple markets before the test
results were available

the method for 'mechanically deboning' meat also guarantees that
nervous tissue will end up in the cheap hamburger [and probably school
lunches] i.e. they crush the carcas and sieve out the bone -- a perfect
recipe for contaminating hamburger with infected tissue if it is present.

"Jenn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Miss L. Toe" wrote:

"Earl Evleth" wrote in message
...


Mad Cow disease, is it still in Europe?


No - we now kill all our cattle before they are 36 months old which is
when
the symptoms show :-)



uh -- this doesn't protect people of course [or is that your point?]

That was my point - hence the smiley

Following up to Jenn

most Americans are unaware of the fact that cattle too sick to stand up
are routine fed to us without any testing at all

10s of thousands of sick cows are dragged or bull dozed into the killing
floor butchered and sent to the market without any testing at all

the UK press says the opposite (of the US). They say US
introduced testing as result of the problem occuring in Europe.
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Walking-food-photos, Wasdale, Thames, London etc "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
and same for Spain at "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

In article ,
Reid wrote:

Following up to Jenn

most Americans are unaware of the fact that cattle too sick to stand up
are routine fed to us without any testing at all

10s of thousands of sick cows are dragged or bull dozed into the killing
floor butchered and sent to the market without any testing at all

the UK press says the opposite (of the US). They say US
introduced testing as result of the problem occuring in Europe.

well they are wrong -- there is little testing and it is not done to
protect the consumer [I am not making that up, that is what our dim Secy
of Agriculture has actually said] only about 1 in 20 downer cows is
tested [the one caught was one such but of course the meat had been sent
to 8 states before the tests came back]

there has been some attempt to control insanely stupid feeding practices
that caused the problem in the UK in the first place and also in Canada
-- and probably in the current US cow which is from a Canadian herd and
born before the feed restrictions went into force. There is
considerable evidence that the restrictions are not very well enforced
[and cow blood is fed to calves in place of milk which suggests the ban
on mammals being fed to cows is loose at best]

the way hamburger is detached from bones -- a process called 'mechanical
deboning' which suggests knives and such -- is that the carcas is
crushed and pushed through a screen, screening out hunks of bone 'larger
than a flake of dandruff' -- 35 % of such meat sold as cheap hamburger
is contaminated with neural tissue from the spine

one bright spot -- the junk food fast food outlets like McDonalds
actually have higher standards for their hamburger and don't use the
frequently contaminated beef from the process described above

Following up to croft

if i recall, when the last UK outbreak hit, ALL movement of livestock
was banned - farmers could even move cattle between fields, to get
fresh grass... many businesses went bust because of it.

beef sourced from overseas was used by many supermarkets,
though 'safe' scottish meat was also included in the ban..

That was a foot and mouth outbreak Croft, BSE is ongoing controls
over use of spinal cords etc in any meat products, things like
that.
IMO the most important thing is the elimination of feeding animal
protein to cattle.
They are also making attempts now to breed out "scrapey" from
sheep populations as this is thought to be a related disease and
where BSE may have come from.
The risk to humans was *probably* focused in eating mechanically
recovered meat in things like burgers. Although its a bit of a
joke how people will stop eating burgers over a tiny risk of CJD
but wont over a massive risk of heart attack!
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Walking-food-photos, Wasdale, Thames, London etc "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
and same for Spain at "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap