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Sure Frodo, American beef is perfectly safe an no BSE could possibly be spead by American farmers. It doesn't not take 2-6 years to develop BSE. It develops from the day of exposure. It kills you depending on the level of exposure, from months to years. That cow was in the USA for 31 months MIN. Depending on whose report you use, but for sake of arguement, we will use the American claim of 31 months.
Cows die often from BSE at that age, but more often than not, they still appear healthy. Eating it will still infect you and eventualy kill you however.
Take Japan for example. they find well infected cattle at ages of 18 months. That means infected in the BRAIN, the end stage of the disease.
Japan does not send sick cows to slaughter, unlike American farmers.
So, it's clear that Japan finds 'healthy' looking cattle with deadly BSE at 18 months of age.
I will attempt to show you how wrong you are. Being a farmer myself, I have some knowlage of things, which I will use to help you understand how things are done and for what reasons.
If it takes two to six years to develop the condition it would seem unlikely that a cow moooved here in 2001 would have gotten it from feed here.
Remember, we are talking dairy cow. they make milk. They are fed high protein from birth. The average life span of a dairy cow is 4.5 years in todays force fed high production industry, like the American dairy industry. An American Dairy cow literaly pours it's bones into the milk pail and is nothing but a bag of hamburger in 4.5 years.
They can live longer if they are not driven to high production, and fed normal vegetarian diets.
Here in Canada, we have an abundance of a crop called 'alphalfa' which yeilds high protein, and is cheap to produce. This is what dairy farmers around here use for protein boosters, it's chopped and mixed with grains and slightly fermented in things we call "silos'. The mixture itself is called "silage'. We have no need to use a much more expensive protein made from rendered animal parts called MBM.
Myself, I grow hundreds of acres of alphalfa purely for export to the USA, because American farmers like the stuff, if they can get it cheap enough. It doesn't grow in the USA. Other than that, they use MBM, or proteins from soy bean, which is even more expensive than MBM.
Remember, it's a competitive world out there, and cheap imput = better bottom line. More milk per cow = better bottom line.
The cow was 4 years old when sold, and it must have been in very good shape, or the AMERICAN dairy farmer would have been NUTS to buy it.
The evidence suggests that this cow was put on a high protien diet AFTER it was sold to get a few more years and pails of milk out of it, and in fact, was still relativly healthy. the reason it was a "downer: was because it was paralized after just having a calf, at 6 1/2 years old!
In fact, the majority of "downer" cattle in the usa are DAIRY cattle, because the demand for high milk production literaly sucks the bones out of them.
They get sick and lame, end up as "downers". MBM helps boost protein and milk production.
Maybe now you can understand the reason American farmers would desire to use it. lower costs, higher production = better bottom line.
Now who do you think started feeding this cow banned MbM?
Lets look at what your own government says about MBM, and it's producers. This is some stuff from the GAO (u.s General Accounting Office) 2001 report.
-"The United States has a more permissive feed ban than other countries- one that allows cattle feed to contain proteins from horses and pigs."
You may not be aware, but pigs and chickens are allowed to be fed MBM in the USA, as the FDA feels that pigs and chickens are immune to BSE. I'll point out, that there has never been a study to prove this. And while they may indeed be immune, there is nothing to prove that they cannot still pass it on, "silent carriers"
of prions, that are fed back to cattle.
-"In the United States, cattle brains and other central nervous system tissue can be sold as human food."
Until now, this has been true, and brains of young cows under 30 months STILL are allowed to be eaten. Cows are allowed to be fed human table scraps, which contain these things.
Now, lets look at how BSE got into America in the first place
-The United States had imported about 125 million pounds of beef and about 1,000 cattle from countries that later discovered BSE. (during the period when BSE would have been incubating). In addition, weaknesses in USDA’s and FDA’s import controls, such as inspection capacity may have allowed BSE-infected products to enter the country.
Ok, this stuff was eaten, milked, chopped up and rendered, fed to cattle. You don't think so?
-With regard to animal testing to detect BSE, although USDA has steadily increased the number of animals it tests, it does not include many animals that die on farms. Experts consider these animals a high-risk population. Concerning the feed ban, FDA has not acted promptly to compel firms to keep prohibited proteins out of cattle feed and to label animal feed that cannot be fed to cattle
MBM is being fed to cattle, this stuff all ends up at rendering plants.
We know who uses this stuff, don't we.
-We identified some noncompliant firms that had not been reinspected for 2 or more years and instances when no enforcement action had occurred even though the firms had been found noncompliant on multiple inspections.
More BSE infected MBM on the market for (unsuspecting?) cattle producers.
-The FDA’s data on inspections are severely flawed and, as a result, FDA does not know the full extent of industry compliance. FDA acknowledges that it has not yet identified and inspected all firms subject to the ban.
That sure is some 'firewall' you have set up in the USA to protect people from a BSE outbreak, isn't it......
you said "Nothing I've found indicates an 18 month develpment cycle. I think you've got that confused with scrappie testing they did earlier on in the BSE research.'
what the heck are you talking about "development cycle"? You get BSE it PROGRESSES, then you die.
There HAVE been tests specificly to determine this. WITH CATTLE.
The reseach showed that death rate was related to initial infection doses.
In otherwords, if the cow ate small amounts, it took longer for the disease to progress. If it ate constant and larger amounts, the time frame was shorter.
The test showed it only took 1 gram of infected material to pass on the disease.
The infectivity test was another study that showed how long after the animal was infected, was it able to pass on the disease. You can catch it from a 6 month old calf.
A cow could very easly live 8 years if it was only exposed to a small amount of BSE contamination at birth. In fact, a representitive from the American cattlemans assoc. stated that himself (reagan) "cattle may be given just a small amout of MBM as a calf starter, maybe for a week or two".
Also, Canada used to(until recently) import about 8 million tons of cattle fed from the USA a year, Now that I look at the USA rendering practices, I wouldn't be at all suprized if cattle were infected by that feed.(see my pointed finger?)
"More than one country actually encourages butchering cows by two years of age and only require testing of carcases over 30 months old."
Doesn't mean the cattle can't have BSE. They don't have to be 'sickly looking' to infect you.
My mother used to say "would you jump off the bridge just because everyone else is?"
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