[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ashington Post - 24 minutes ago
By Charles Abbott and Sophie Walker. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tests confirmed a second case of mad cow disease in the United States, this time in an 8-year-old beef cow, the US Agriculture Department said on Friday. ...

[Ludi]

Well, I think I've enjoyed my last dead cow...

[Pops]

So much for being a cattle baron, I heard Taiwan doesn’t even want our ground nerve tissue now…

[turmoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Washington Post', '.')..in an 8-year-old beef cow

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'J')ust eat organic beef (if you want to eat beef, that is). It's perfectly safe from TSEs because it is never fed any animal tissue.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you can convince me that you know as much about beef production as I do, and as much about the mad cow "surveillance" and "prevention" (more like "don't look" and "max profits at any cost") programs as I do, and then tell me why I still shouldn't worry about eating factory farmed beef I will be very grateful

[erl]

I decided a while ago that I would discontinue eating beef when the U.S. began importing beef products from Canada again.

Now, it looks like I will no longer be eating beef at all. So, I no longer care whether we import from Canada or not.

[Grimnir]

The freaky thing about BSE (for me) is that it takes something like 5-10 years for the symptoms to become obvious. So if infected meat slipped through the cracks, it's possible we wouldn't even know until half a decade later when a bunch of people started going crazy in sync. Hm. Any chance some of that stuff could have snuck out about 5 years ago?

[jato]

If beef prices drop due to the mad-cow scare, it will allow me to purchase and consume more beef! Yippee!

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'F')rankly I don't understand how someone who sees humanity in its current incarnation as a cancer, and believes that "digging in the earth" is wrong (points on which I pretty much agree, by the way), would be willing to advocate eating factory farmed food.

[The_Virginian]

Smallpoxgirl,

it is highly questionable that ANY cases of vCJD are "Sporadic" in a genetic sense, the infection came from somewhere, the gov. either does not want to know, or can't in every case.

For example, if the infection came as a milk replacer (often from BLOOD), or from a CWD (CJD) infected deer droppings, or from a mother cow already eaten long ago...you could never reallly know WHERE the infection came from...

So it's "Sporadic" because it's "Isolated"

Yah right....

As for eating vCJD cows, I'll bet many of us already have.

Too bad it is ILLEGAL to test a herd, raise them as vCJD free (grass fed, no commercial feed) and sell it w/o the FDA getting funky about the "labling" isssue. (as Hormone free milk producers found out)

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Virginian', 'A')s for eating vCJD cows, I'll bet many of us already have.

[Macsporan]

Speaking of devouring the flesh of poor, defenceless creatures, how about we don't.

Not only is it unhealthy, but in a post PO world we won't be able to afford our vile carnivourous habits any more.

This is not just sentiment as the EROEI of meat is derisory compared to fruit and veg.

Ditto water consumption, (read power to pump water).

As 80% of grain grown in the US goes to feed the shit that comes out of McDeath and KF Cat, and as in the post PO agricultural production will fall significantly, this would seem like a good idea.

So pull your fork out of that cute little cowie and face the future with a carrot on a plate.

[I_Like_Plants]

Hamburger's the worst, a given hamburger from Safeway or McDonald's, take your choice, will contain the meat from HUNDREDS of cows.

I do eat beef, seem to be eating organic beef lately because the places I shop (trader joe's, and trader joe's, with occasions trips to whole foods, and trader joe's) have hamburger and rather high-end organic beef, sheesh I was looking at two ribeye steaks for something like $20-odd, I settled for a $12 steak that I cut in half, that's two dinners. Grass-fed organic, I feel I'm paying more like the real price beef ought to cost.

I really urge you all to get the DVD SuperSize Me, for the movie which is great even after multiple viewings, and the interview after it with a guy who wrote Fast Food Nation, which is a book I recommend too.

The problem with hamburger is, not only are you eating the meat of 100s of different cattle which may or may not have been "downers", sick, acting weird, etc., but hamburger has all kinds of weird stuff in it like reclaimed blood, nerve tissue, etc just think all the stuff most likely to contain BSE prions and that's most likely to be found in hamburger. The Brits who got BSE seem to mostly, if not all, gotten it from hamburger, which they call "mince".

[Ludi]

It's true many of us are poor at risk evaluation, and that we're far more likely to die in a car accident or of a heart attack than from mad cow. I rarely allow myself to get paranoid about things like rare diseases.

But in the case of mad cow, I don't know if it is possible to accurately predict the risk.

[Macsporan]

Organic grassfed beef may give pleasure to you but it still gives pain to the cow.

[frankthetank]

Heres another option for you beef eaters...

Buffalo

A friend has a freezer full because he was able to shoot one from Indian land in SD for very little money (@200 or so) for a huge animal. Grass fed and very lean.

Its an option/the burgers are excellent...

I don't eat beef(store bought)...haven't for a long time.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

Sorry for the long post but theres more elsewhere if you are interested.

THIRTEEN REASONS WHY IT DIDN'T & MAD COW IS IN YOUR FRIDGE TODAY:

1.) MAD COW, SCRAPIE and CJD are mutations of a cannibal disease. A mammal gets it by eating the infected flesh of another mammal, although corneal transplants and pituitary injections also carry it.

2.) US/Brit Sheep were infected simultaneously back in the 70s. In both countries, sheep's dead bodies were turned into protein powder and fed to cows. Britain banned 'death kibble' in '88. It's still 100% legal in USA.

3.) MAD COW causes NO ANTIBODY RESPONSE. When infection enters any body, human or animal, the victim's immune system shows no sign of fighting the infection as it does with bacteria, germs and viruses which means the mammal's immune system can neither detect nor fight it nor can scientists use the antibody-search method to see if someone is sick, as we do with AIDS.

4.) CJD disease takes 10-50 years to eat away the human brain. In COWS, death strikes as early as one year after exposure, as late as 8.

5. ) Mad-cow causes a genetic mutation which is transmissible so if you have it and are starting a family all your children will have it. Sheep and cows pass it to offspring, too and chickens to their eggs. If it weren't transmissable, why for decades had the FDA has demanded that all donors to the blood supply answer the question 'has anyone in your family died of Cruetzfeldt-Jacob?' The disease is l00% inherited and one drop of blood of a descendant of a CJD victims can infect all your descendents down through time.

6.) No scientist can tell if a cow or human is in an incubating phase. Except for brain biopsies, there are no tests, no genetic markers. Prions are not reliably found in urine. You can see prions in brain tissue but you cannot open the skull of a live mammal to scoop them out. If a cow whose milk you are drinking has it, her calf, sent to be a veal chop last Winter, had it when you ate him. An older cow may fall over dead with it, but meanwhile her sick, offspring are long gone to human tables. The long incubation period means the farmer can't see that the animal is ill. The USDA studies the brain of 100 cows per hundred thousand --- a snippet of a sample indeed.

7.) Mad-Cow is killing faster and faster. It was once thought humans could incubate the disease for up to five decades without going into the final, dementia stage but lately Brit teens have been dying of it so it appears Mad-Cow prions evolve the way everything else does. The mutation is toward legs.

8.) The only way for a farmer to find the disease in his herd is via a 500$ autopsy. Farmers prefer selling the corpse to a rendering factory for $l00 profit, a practice still legal in the America at this time of writing.

9.) Mad Cow prions can't be killed the way we fought the plague or fight cholera epidemics, or Ebola, by burning bodies. It is passed on via 'prions', proteins that degrade at 800 fahrenheit, way above the temperature that would reduce them to ash. What is more, burning is a bad idea, as prion molecules go up in the smoke, airborne and fall back on the land. As they were never alive, they do not die. These zombie molecules just wait for the next set of munching teeth. As Britain is considering burning 5 million cows soon, loosing the prions like some ghostly stampede in the sky, the air and water there may soon be contaminated. Cancel your Summer trip. The place will soon be a giant science experiment.

10.) Though Mad-Cow attacks brains, it's thought to be in every part of the cow, his flesh, blood, urine. The contamination cannot be removed by cooking or powdering him. A British Vegan woman caught it simply by dusting her roses with blood meal.

11.) USA has had thousands of 'downer' cows (dying mysteriously) since l981. Dr. Richard Marsh, a virologist on the Veterinary staff at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, stated that he had seen 100 cases of BSE in America, between 1981 and 1989. If the bug entered US beef 15 years ago and has been multiplying ever since, a million cows could be infected.

12.) MAD-COW mortality figures hide behind the skirts of Alzheimer's. Some U.S. doctors know the truth yet haven't blown whistles. Pittsburgh Veterans hospital autopsied 53 sequential Alzheimer's victims. Sampling 1 showed 5.5% had died of Mad-Cow, sampling #2 that 6.3 Percent died of Mad-Cow. Alzheimer's death tolls are doubling and tripling, not characteristic of a genetic disease ergo the shadowy presence of another PROBABLE CAUSE.

13.) No lab in USA will do a Mad-cow autopsy as the prion cannot be burned out, sterilized afterwards so on all our death certificates, officially, we're going to die of you guessed it, ALZHEIMER's and the cows? They're downers. That's all.

Since beef and sheep farmers have been sending 'downer' livestock to rendering factories to be made into 'protein powder' for livestock for the last 26 years, Mad Cow prions could be in every ounce of meat, milk, pork, chicken, egg, cheese, or butter you have eaten since l970 and in every bite you eat today and in gelatin caps, animal glandular supplements and in the glue on the postage stamp you will use to mail a xerox of this article to your Aunt Edna.

Forget Ebola which kills you so fast you can't move ten feet and give it to anyone else and which you can blow out like a birthday candle with a good bonfire. Mad Cow is the most prevalent, virulent disease to hit this planet since the plague. Conceivably it could represent the end of all human life here, vacating the orb for a new, Vegetarian Adam and Eve to bring forth a new, meat-free race, or for Pleidean squatters to turn into Acapulco.

elsewhere

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

So what is the connection between the human prion disease (CJD) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD)? Firstly, the astounding recent increase in AD in the United States has not been sufficiently highlighted by the media. In 1979, only 653 people died of AD. In 2002, that number had increased to 50,000 deaths. A 9,000% increase in deaths for any disease in a mere 25 years should be cause for a national emergency. Instead, old people now are almost expected to die of AD. This was not the case a few generations ago. AD was a rare disease in the 1960s.

AD is quite difficult to diagnose. Mood swings, psychiatric problems, sleep problems, eye problems, memory problems are all loosely associated with dementia. Some of these AD symptoms overlap with CJD symptoms. The main difference is that AD takes much longer to progress to death. CJD is much more rapid. Typically, people die 3-18 months after CJD diagnosis. The gold standard for diagnosing CJD is by autopsy and pathology studies of the brain. Two shocking studies, one from Yale University and the second from University of Pittsburgh really opened my eyes when I first saw them. When researchers studied the brains of dead Alzheimer,s disease patients, they found that between 5-13% had actually been wrongly diagnosed. These people had really died of CJD. Now, what does this say regarding the supposed rarity of CJD in the USA?

We are routinely told that CJD is so rare, only 1 in a million people get it. But with 4-5 million Alzheimer's Disease patients currently putting an enormous strain on the US healthcare system, if even a small percentage of these people actually have CJD, not AD, then CJD is much more common than we have been told. These figures imply thousands of CJD cases in the US that are going undetected because of a lack of autopsies. Recent reports indicate that most pathologists do not want to conduct autopsies on CJD patients for fear of contaminating their facilities with the indestructible prions. And to make matters even worse, CJD is not even a mandatory reportable disease in about half the states in the USA. That means authorities have no real idea of how many CJD cases actually exist.

Recently (October 2004), a suspected cluster of CJD was spotted in Ulster County New York. Several months ago (March 2004), another cluster of CJD was noticed in New Jersey. Clusters are worrying because they may point to an infectious entity. In both New York and New Jersey clusters, the health authorities assured the public that these were 'sporadic CJD' and hence there was nothing to worry about. Sporadic CJD has no known cause, the health authorities tell us. Both USDA and CDC tell us that sporadic CJD arises randomly and has nothing to do with eating tainted beef. According to health officials, only variant CJD or vCJD, is caused by eating tainted beef. We are also told that there has never been a case of human mad cow disease in the US.

from here

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', '
')Forget Ebola which kills you so fast you can't move ten feet and give it to anyone else and which you can blow out like a birthday candle with a good bonfire. Mad Cow is the most prevalent, virulent disease to hit this planet since the plague. Conceivably it could represent the end of all human life here, vacating the orb for a new, Vegetarian Adam and Eve to bring forth a new, meat-free race, or for Pleidean squatters to turn into Acapulco.