Food Safety: Mad Cow Disease updates 2008-2009
EconomicDemocracy Coop
* FDA urged to ban feeding of chicken feces to cattle
By Jerry Hirsch
LA Times, October 31, 2009
Straight to the Source
A fight is brewing over the practice of feeding chicken feces and
other poultry farm waste to cattle.
A coalition of food and consumer groups that includes Consumers Union
and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the Food
and Drug Administration to ban the practice. McDonald's Corp., the
nation's largest restaurant user of beef, also wants the FDA to
prohibit the feeding of so-called poultry litter to cattle.
Members of the coalition are threatening to file a lawsuit or to push
for federal legislation establishing such a ban if the FDA doesn't act
to do so in the coming months.
Farmers feed 1 million to 2 million tons of poultry litter to their
cattle annually, according to FDA estimates.
Using the litter -- which includes feces, spilled chicken feed,
feathers and poultry farm detritus -- increases the risk of cows
becoming infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow
disease, said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union.
That's because the spilled chicken feed and the feces contain tissue
from ruminants -- cows and sheep, among other mammals. The disease is
transmitted through feeding ruminant remains to cattle.
"It takes a very small quantity of ruminant protein, even just 1
milligram, to cause an infection," said Steve Roach, public health
program director with Food Animal Concerns Trust, a Chicago-based
animal welfare group that is part of the coalition.
Although it is rare, people can contract a fatal form of the disease
by eating meat from cows with BSE.
[The Beef Industry representatives of course are against the ban..and
they crow how very little has every been found of Mad Cow in the
U.S....they forget to tell you this: we test far far smaller
percentages:
"It's disturbing that, even with a confirmed case of mad cow disease,
slaughtered cows are not tested before they are sent to market," said
Krull. The United States Department of Agriculture tests
approximately .03 percent of U.S. slaughtered cattle for mad cow
disease in their random spot tests [VERSUS 25% IN EUROPE AND 100% IN
JAPAN -- the 25% comes from Europe testing 100% of cows over a certain
number of months old in age -- SEE
PREVIOUSLY POSTED ARTICLES -ED] "[Testing every cow would] translate
into about six cents per pound of beef [but] The more cattle tested,
the more likely it is that some will be found with mad cow disease.
"They don't want to find it," says Krull. "The USDA really should be
funding this like crazy, but their not."
[See "MAD COW: USDA Won't Test Because 'They don't want to find it' "
which we posted to groups.google.com on January 9th of 2004
--ED comment, Jan 2010]
==========
New Tests Show Hazards of Spreading Mad Cow-Like Diseases by Feeding
Animal Fats to Animals
* Detection of Prion Infectivity in Fat Tissues of Scrapie-
Infected Mice
Public Library of Science, December 5, 2008
Straight to the Source
Abstract
Distribution of prion infectivity in organs and tissues is important
in understanding prion disease pathogenesis and designing strategies
to prevent prion infection in animals and humans. Transmission of
prion disease from cattle to humans resulted in banning human
consumption of ruminant nervous system and certain other tissues. In
the present study, we surveyed tissue distribution of prion
infectivity in mice with prion disease. We show for the first time
detection of infectivity in white and brown fat. Since high amounts of
ruminant fat are consumed by humans and also incorporated into animal
feed, fat-containing tissues may pose a previously unappreciated
hazard for spread of prion infection.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_16077.cfm
============
Scientist Warns that Farmed Fish Could be a Source of Mad Cow Disease
* By Jeremy Hance
MongaBay.com, June 17, 2009
Straight to the Source
In a paper that shows just how strange our modern world has become,
Robert P. Friedland, neurologist from the University of Louisville,
warns that farmed fish could be at risk of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease,
or mad cow disease.
Currently, farmed fish are fed cow byproducts-a food source they would
never find natural environment (unless society started dumping cow
carcasses in oceans or lakes).
Friedland and co-authors raise the issue in the Journal of Alzhemier's
Disease and call on food regulators to ban feeding cow bone or meat to
farmed fish until it can be determined if the practice of feeding fish
cow-parts is safe.
"We have not proven that it's possible for fish to transmit the
disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution
for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish
should be prohibited," Friedland said. "Fish do very well in the seas
without eating cows."
Mad cow disease is a fatal disease that can be contracted by eating
parts of a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
After an outbreak in Britain due to infected beef, 163 people died.
"The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked
to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts
to fish is safe," warns Friedland. "The incubation period of these
diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between
feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to
be put in place to protect the public."
Along with cow, farmed fish are also fed significant amounts of
antibiotics to keep them disease-and-parasite free. Farmed fish pose
additional health hazards due to the possibility of mercury
contamination.