• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

AMI FACTSHEET ON BSE

Help Support Ranchers.net:

Mike

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
28,480
Reaction score
2
Location
Montgomery, Al
This from the AMI website. Be sure to read it all especially the last part, FINAL THOUGHTS. Yes Sandhusker, the AMI are experts on BSE.

This is a bunch of "horse hockey". Very misleading.

Again, follow the money.



http://www.meatami.com/content/presscenter/factsheets_Infokits/TestingforBSE.pdf
 
This is a bunch of "horse hockey". Very misleading.

Again, follow the money.



Mike, I am curious what information that you have to refute the statements made in the AMI fact sheet. Have a great day. agman
 
By John E. Peck

Printer friendly version


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On December 23, 2003, the first official U.S. case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)—better known as mad cow disease—was reported by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) at the Sunny Dene Ranch near Mabton, Washington. While Wall Street investors scrambled to monitor their McDonald's stocks, White House spokesperson Scott McClellan hastened to assure everyone that President Bush was still enjoying beef. USDA secretary Ann Veneman also publicly pledged to serve beef to her family as part of their yuletide feast. The world's response to the arrival of mad cow in the U.S. was basically a replay of what happened earlier in Canada when BSE was reported there in May. A total of 43 countries have now imposed bans on U.S. beef imports, including Japan, which purchased $854 million worth in 2002. Of the top four beef buyers (Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Canada account for 92 percent of U.S. exports) only Canada does not have a full ban (Canada will accept boneless beef from U.S. cattle under 30 months old). The final economic impact on the $40 billion U.S. beef industry won't be known for a while. Wisconsin alone exported live animals and meat worth $194 million last year, much of it to Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, those U.S. farmers who had already switched to low-input, organic, grass-fed systems reported unprecedented demand for their BSE-free meat. Similar booms in natural grass-fed beef prices are being reported in Brazil and Australia.

Mad cow is but one member of an extended disease family known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs). These TSEs are caused by eating bits of renegade protein known as prions. Since these abnormal prions cannot be digested, they accumulate in toxic clumps eventually producing holes in brain tissue. In deer and elk, this lethal neurological condition is known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), in sheep it is called Scrappie, while in humans it is known as Kuru (endemic among certain human societies that practice ritualistic cannibalism), though there is growing medical evidence that pathogenic prions also trigger variant Creuzveldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), as well as some forms of Alzheimers. Being smaller and more resilient than viruses or bacteria, prions are not destroyed by freezing, cooking, sterilization, or irradiation. Worse yet, pathogenic prions can jump the species barrier.

Upton Sinclair was one of the first to describe "downer" dairy cows—too sick to walk—being dragged to slaughter in his 1906 novel about the Chicago stockyards, The Jungle. Many would argue that the situation in the factory farm/slaughterhouse meat industry complex is worse today than when Sinclair lived. Reading books such as Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, it is tempting to look at the calendar to remind oneself of the century. Today, over 200,000 known "downers" are sent to U.S. meatpackers each year (though many others go undetected) and they remain primary mad cow suspects. Some of the first scientific evidence of the deadly presence of TSEs in the U.S. came from mink studies by Professor Richard Marsh of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Veterinarian Department in the 1980s. His finding that deadly factory mink farm epidemics were likely caused by high protein feed derived from "downer" dairy cows was downplayed by academic superiors, government officials, and industry spokespeople. Marsh was hounded and eventually ostracized for daring to expose the dirty laundry of the meat industry. Like Rachel Carson, his groundbreaking investigation is only now being vindicated after his death.

Across the Atlantic the existence of mad cow was confirmed in the UK in 1985, and the outbreak soon spread across the rest of Europe, ultimately leading to the slaughter of 3.7 million animals. In one of the more bizarre public relations attempts to boost consumer morale, British agriculture secretary, John Gummer, fed a hamburger to his four-year-old daughter before television cameras in 1990. Three months later British health minister, Stephen Dorrell, was before Parliament telling the world that mad cow could also sicken humans. Six years later, the first victims emerged. Over 140 people have now died in Europe—mostly in Britain—from variant CJD and, given the long incubation period, the final human toll will be much higher. This horrific experience led to the adoption of much tougher food safety standards worldwide. Europe adopted a full ban on animal byproducts in livestock feed and now requires BSE testing of all animals over 30 months old—one out of every four animals. Belgium alone tests 20 times as many animals each year for mad cow as the U.S.—Japan tests every animal killed, regardless of age.

While some farm/food activists in the U.S. were diligently following the mad cow nightmare in Britain with alarm, millions of TV viewers became unwittingly exposed to the specter thanks to Oprah. On April 16, 1996 Oprah's guest was Howard Lyman, a Montana rancher turned vegan activist, and mad cow was one of the topics. Lyman revealed that U.S. cows were literally eating themselves (with human help) and this revelation led Oprah to exclaim that it had "just stopped me cold from eating another hamburger." Within hours of the show's airing, cattle futures dropped by 20 percent on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Texas Cattleman's Association pulled $600,000 in advertising from Oprah's network, while filing suit under a new corporate-friendly Texas "food disparagement" law. Their attempt to stifle public criticism proved unsuccessful, and Oprah won her free speech case after spending millions on defense attorneys.



In 1997, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of Madison, Wisconsin-based PR Watch released Mad Cow U.S.A, another warning that was quickly pooh-poohed as hysterical and alarmist by public officials and industry spin doctors alike. (Their book is available online at www.prwatch.org/books/madcow.) Howard Lyman followed in 1998 with his own scathing expose of the meat industry, Mad Cowboy. Lyman minces no words, letting consumers know that everything from roadkill animals to euthanized pets go to rendering plants and ultimately into livestock rations and onto butcher blocks. Those with a big stake in the status quo howled for damage control. With the results of a three-year, taxpayer-subsidized, computer-driven study in hand, the deputy director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, George Gray, soothingly reported: "We are firmly confident that BSE will not become an animal or public health problem in America. The United States is very resistant to BSE. As far as we know, it's not here now, but if it does get in, it can't become established. Basically with the measures that are already in place, even with imperfect compliance, the disease in the cattle herd dies out, and the potential for people to be exposed to infected cattle parts is tiny" (Agriview, 12/20/2001). Rural realities have since proven the statistical models wrong.


The White House knew as early as 1991 that a moratorium on feeding livestock back to livestock was necessary in the U.S. to avoid its own mad cow outbreak. A federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) report from that year, obtained by PR Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) clearly states: "The advantage of this option is that it minimizes the risk of BSE. The disadvantage is that the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial." However, it was not until 1997 that the FDA issued a ruling that all livestock feed containing meat and bone meal from ruminants must be labeled "do not feed to ruminants." Contrary to the rhetoric of government officials and corporate apologists, there is no "firewall." The White House never banned the practice of livestock cannibalism, nor has the government ever offered proof of its claim that there is 99 percent industry compliance with the labeling rule. In fact, an FDA inspection of rendering plants and feed mills in 2000 revealed that up to half lacked the proper warning labels and up to a quarter had no way to even detect or prevent mix-ups in their use of risky animal byproducts (Wisconsin State Journal, 1/12/2001).

In January 2002, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) also issued a report that found the 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." According to the GAO, noncompliant firms had not been re-inspected in two years, firms with multiple infractions evaded any penalty, and the FDA's inspection data were "severely flawed." As recently as July 2003, the FDA was still issuing consent decrees against feed mills for non-compliance. The GAO report concluded, the "FDA does not know the full extent of industry compliance." A Friends of the Earth (FOE) review of FDA records found over a dozen feed mills in Washington State had violated federal labeling requirements between 1998 and 2002 (Seattle Post Intelligencer, 12/27/03). In Wisconsin alone there are over 500 feed mills supposedly subject to some form of government regulation.

The consumer watchdog Public Citizen has issued countless warnings about lethargic food safety enforcement over the last few years. Whereas close to 35 million head of cattle are slaughtered annually in the U.S., only 57,000 animals have been tested for BSE since 1990. Public Citizen has shown that there is little testing consistency across states, virtually no public transparency of the process, and too much industry discretion about which animals are tested (www.citizen.org/documents/madcowreport.pdf). For example, in Wisconsin last year 1.5 million cattle were slaughtered, yet only 2,900 were checked for BSE. Ongoing White House efforts to "privatize" regulatory functions, as well as federal and state budget cutting exercises have meant dwindling food safety inspections, more cursory and flimsy testing, and a general eroding of public oversight of the meat industry. Big Beef has been larding politicians with campaign contributions over the years—$22 million since 1990, mostly to Republicans—towards this end.

One thing that has been consistent over time is the concerted effort by the agribusiness establishment and government bureaucracy to squash concern about BSE in the U.S. The revolving door between Big Beef and the White House is notorious. Lisa Harrison, former public relations director for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association—who sent out press releases with titles like "Mad Cow Disease Not a Problem in the U.S." following the Oprah show—is now the USDA's BSE spokesperson. Veneman's current chief of staff, Dale Moore, is a former lobbyist for the meat industry. Recently appointed to the federal mad cow committee is William Heuston, another meat industry shill who was an expert witness against Oprah Winfrey and Howard Lyman in their libel suit. Such paralyzing and corrupting conflicts of interest in the wake of the mad cow epidemic forced the UK to create a separate Food Safety Agency independent from the Ministry of Agriculture. The USDA, though, is treating mad cow as more of a public relations problem for meatpackers than as a real safety concern for consumers. Helping with this effort are right-wing "junk science" pundits, such as Steve Milloy of the Cato Institute, now hitting the mass media with stories disputing that prions even cause disease.

The fact that mad cow found its way to the U.S. was almost an inevitable consequence of corporate globalization and industrial agribusiness. The cow that tested positive for BSE in Washington State was most likely imported from Canada with 80 others in 2001. So far only a handful of those other animals have been located and their adopted herds quarantined. Government regulation of cross border livestock shipment is minimal at best, and transshipment has skyrocketed with the expansion of global free trade regimes like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 2003 Mexico shipped over 1 million cows to the U.S., while Canada exported 1.7 million cows. The lack of government oversight goes even further as revealed by a story in the Yakima Herald Tribune. Because there is no mandated domestic tracking system, an entire herd of 449 bull calves in Washington state had to be killed because USDA officials had no way to identify the single offspring from the BSE infected cow among them.

Factory farming only increases the likelihood for BSE contamination. The infected cow was part of a mega-dairy operation involving 2,600 milking cows and 1,300 dry and replacement cows in 2 locations—Mabton and Grandview. Standard procedure on such factory farms entails recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) injections, as well as feeding of a total mixed ration (TMR) containing "high protein" animal byproducts. These cows are prone to elevated levels of mastitis (udder infection) and other health problems, prompting farmers to use more (often illegal) antibiotics and other dubious supplements. Cramped cows on drugs also "burn out" quickly—lasting only three to four years, half the productive lifespan of a dairy cow out on pasture—and this high attrition rate means more "downer" cows in the food stream. Treating animals like machines also means that factory farms cannot sustain themselves—cows are culled too fast to produce enough young to even replace themselves—so they must rely on constant infusions of fresh heifers from either better managed (but still going bankrupt) family farm dairy herds or imported livestock herds.

Further up the food chain, the chance to spread BSE continues. Disassembly line speeds in U.S. slaughterhouses run at rates three times that legally allowed in Europe, triggering more worker injuries and aggravating meat contamination. Cost-saving "innovations" like air compressed stunning, bolt guns, carcass splitting, mechanical deboning, and advanced meat recovery (AMR) translate into more "non-meat" waste in the food supply. Finding a chunk of spinal column still attached to a T-bone steak at the store is no longer that uncommon. Even if an animal were to test positive for a health problem in the U.S., its meat has long since been processed and dispersed throughout the nation's food supply—executives and shareholders simply can't stomach the prospect of profit being held up due to frivolous health regulations. Thanks to increasing corporate consolidation of the meat industry, a single hamburger patty can contain up to 100 different animals, and one sick animal can contaminate up to 32,000 pounds of ground beef. As happened in this case, meat from the BSE infected downer cow slaughtered on December 9 in Moses Lake, Washington quickly found its way to eight states (Washington, Nevada, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, California, Hawaii), as well as the U.S. territory of Guam. According to the USDA, its subsequent recall of 10,410 pounds of hamburger and meat cuts was taken out of "an abundance of caution," not because of any imminent threat of BSE contamination. Still in a state of denial, the agency has not provided any BSE/CJD health advisory to those who may have consumed the suspect meat either.




Researchers have shown that blood can also harbor pathogenic prions. In fact, U.S. residents who spent extensive time in Europe during the mad cow epidemic are not allowed to donate blood here and surgeons in the UK still rely on imported blood for operations there precisely because of this risk. Yet, under the current USDA regulations there is no labeling or restriction placed on feeding cattle blood back to calves in the form of milk replacer, calf starter, and other supplements. In Wisconsin numerous companies promote these milk replacers with "spray dried animal blood cells" to dairy farmers. Bovine serum is also used by corporations like Monsanto to "feed" the genetically engineered e. coli bacteria which produce its brand name rBGH—Posilac—yet any potential connection between this and BSE has not been addressed by the USDA.

Another legal loophole for possible spread of mad cow involves gelatin, tallow, and "plate waste"—i.e., cooked meat that has been offered to humans and then salvaged by the meat industry for feeding back to livestock. Worse yet, USDA rules still permit the use of ruminant byproducts to feed non-ruminants—such as swine, horses, pets, and poultry—which are then in turn fed back to cattle or people. This vicious cycle of livestock cannibalism only magnifies the spread of BSE within the animal and human food supply.

The immediate USDA response to mad cow in the U.S. was to ban use of downer cows for any human meat use, to hold all products from BSE tested animals until the results are actually in, expand overall BSE testing, ban use of Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR) technology on animals over 30 months old and phase out air injection stunning, establish a national livestock tracking system, and require tougher labeling of animal food products that contain more than just meat (i.e., spinal cord, brain, nerve tissue, intestine). For farm/food critics, these are long overdue steps that don't go far enough. The USDA plan does not keep downer cows out of rendering plants to become "fresh" livestock feed, does nothing about ending the practice of livestock cannibalism, does not insure that livestock are free of BSE, or that human food is safe from non-meat materials that might contain pathogenic prions.


Stopping Mad Cow

Demand Immediate Congressional Investigation of the Meat Industry. There should be national public hearings on the mad cow issue and more general food safety concerns with the meat industry. Furthermore, Congress should call on the GAO for a comprehensive review of USDA and FDA meat industry oversight and enforcement activity, as well as consideration of alternatives—such as a more transparent accountable federal agency exclusively responsible for food safety. The contributing role of the land grant colleges also needs to be addressed since for decades public researchers and extension agents have been developing and promoting questionable technologies such as rBGH, AMR, and TMR, which help spread BSE.
Approve and Implement Country of Origin Labeling (COOL). Consumers and farmers have the right to know exactly where their food and feed come from—and this includes meat products, dietary supplements, milk replacers, and the like. Many farmer and consumer groups fought hard to include COOL in the last Farm Bill, but it has now been stalled due to agribusiness lobbying with the support of the Bush administration. COOL should be passed by Congress and enacted immediately.
Ban the Feeding of Animal Byproducts to Livestock. Livestock cannibalism is not natural and is dangerous. Herbivores should not be consuming ground-up carcasses of other animals as part of a "high protein" total mixed ration (TMR), or a separate nutritional supplement, no matter what extension agents or agribusiness salesmen say. The same goes for poultry manure, cooked human "plate waste," gelatin, tallow, blood/bone meal, or other animal-derived byproducts used as livestock "feed," which could serve as sources of BSE infection and contamination.
Ban the Use of Bovine Blood in Milk Replacer and Other Calf Supplements. U.S. citizens who have been to Europe and possibly exposed to BSE are prohibited from donating blood, yet U.S. agribusiness corporations are allowed to extract blood from slaughtered livestock and then sell such to farmers as a "high protein" ingredient in milk replacer, calf starter, and other growth supplements. The World Health Organization has warned against this vampiric practice for over a decade and it should be prohibited. The role of livestock blood in the manufacture of other livestock products—such as rBGH—also needs to be federally investigated for its potential BSE contamination role.
Ban the Use of "Downer" Cows for Human Food. Dairy cows that can't even walk into a slaughterhouse have obvious health problems, such as BSE, and are not fit for human consumption. Meat from downer cows has supposedly been banned from use in the USDA School Lunch Program for years, yet it has been deemed by the FDA as safe to eat by adults and children outside of school. No downer cow meat or other byproducts should be allowed in the human food supply. The fact that irradiation does not destroy prions, should also make the USDA think twice about its decision to allow irradiation as an effective and safe form of "pasteurization."
Ban Advance Meat Recovery (AMR) and Other Risky Slaughter Practices. Mechanical deboning and advanced meat recovery (AMR) are just money grubbing efforts to extract every last ounce of tissue from a carcass in order to make "more" product—hamburger, pepperoni, hotdogs, bologna, tacos, sausage. The use of air injection stunners and bolt guns to kill livestock should also be banned since this guarantees the splatter of brain tissue over the rest of the animal carcass. Such sloppy practices almost guarantee BSE contamination. People should not be misled into eating brain, cartilage, gristle, tendons, nerves, and other basically indigestible material they think is "meat" and thereby exposing themselves to pathogenic prions. AMR and these other risky meat industry practices belong in the technological trashbin.
Regulate High Risk Animal Byproducts in Dietary Supplements and Cosmetics. Livestock tissues that could contain pathogenic prions such as brain, spinal cord, and dorsal root ganglia are also used as ingredients in many human dietary supplements. The federal government should require reporting from manufacturers, mandate risk warnings for consumers and comprehensive product registration, as well as explicit identification of the livestock ingredients and country of origin labeling (COOL). The same federal scrutiny is deserved for cosmetics that contain beef tallow.
Severely Restrict and Monitor the Importation of Live Animals. The reckless transshipment of disease-carrying species across borders has been one of the worst consequences of free trade—and the spread of BSE across North America is but the latest example. Just because factory farms are so unsustainable that they burnout their cows prematurely and can't produce enough calves to maintain their herd levels does not mean they should be allowed to import animals from Canada or Argentina at will. The USDA must conduct strict border checks for diseases like BSE and implement a national livestock tracking system, like the one already in place in Brazil (now the largest beef exporter in the world).
Expand BSE testing to All Slaughtered Livestock. Comprehensivs BSE testing of all livestock is already mandated in Japan, and can be done in but a few hours with new BSE tests that the U.S. has not yet adopted. In fact, one of these quick BSE tests, widely used in Europe, was developed by 1997 Nobel Prize winning scientist and prion expert, Prof. Stanley Prusiner at the University of California, San Francisco. The U.S. needs to upgrade its scientific procedures, learn from other countries, and get more serious about routine livestock disease testing. Ignorance is not bliss.
Expand Preventative TSE Research and Begin CJD Monitoring in Humans. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) should begin proactive education of medical professionals about TSEs and initiate nationwide monitoring of CJD. Casual surveys of death certificates are not adequate. The National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University, created by the CDC in 1997, needs more funding and publicity of its vital work. While the National Institute of Health has allocated $27 million towards TSE related research, this work needs to get beyond theoretical issues to work on preventative solutions.
 
Yup said:
By John E. Peck

Printer friendly version


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peck's article is very lengthy but where and how does it disprove the comments made in the AMI Factsheet?

Blaming BSE on Globalization is quite a reach. Did we not have inter- country trade prior to the past few decades? Yup we did.
 
Mike, I am curious what information that you have to refute the statements made in the AMI fact sheet. Have a great day. agman[/quote]
-----------------------------------
The whole "fact sheet" is full of half-truths and innuendo concerning 30 month cattle. While it is true that older cattle are more prone to have "Full Blown BSE", at least 85 UTM's have been found positive worldwide. A small number granted, but then again a very small number have been tested. How do we know if we don't test 'em?

They also go on to say that the Japs Food Safety Commission has recommended that all animals 20 months and over should be tested.
Contradictory to the overall theme in the "AMI Factsheet" of only over 30 month animals should be tested. Is the Japs science better than ours?

" It makes no sense to test a category of cattle that will always test negative." AMI Fact Sheet (referring to UTM's) KEYWORD="ALWAYS"
Then they go on to say that the Japs have had 2 animals UTM test positive?

Would you like me to take it line by line?
 
"A small number granted, but then again a very small number have been tested."

Actually a GREAT number have been tested in some countries with very few UTMs positive when one factors in the difference in testing and possible hyuman error in age determination the numbers are indeed miniscule.
 
Anonymous said:
"A small number granted, but then again a very small number have been tested."

Actually a GREAT number have been tested in some countries with very few UTMs positive when one factors in the difference in testing and possible hyuman error in age determination the numbers are indeed miniscule.


How many people can be infected from those "miniscule numbers" slipping through?
 
USDA's Final Rule, in the following ways, compromises science acknowledged throughout the rest of the world:
1) It adopts the Specified Risk Materials (SRM) removal practices recommended by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and practiced in the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) for years – except that USDA only includes some high-risk tissues in its SRM removal plan (fewer tissues than included in the standard risk-reduction practices in the UK and the EU). USDA's Final Rule does not begin removal of SRMs at the age where OIE, the UK, and the EU consider it necessary. USDA's Final Rule requires SRM removal only from cattle over 30 months of age, while European countries require removal of SRMs in all cattle over 12 months of age. OIE recommends SRM removal from cattle over 6 months of age for countries with the same disease characteristics as Canada.
-------------------------------------------------------
In the "AMI BSE FACT SHEET" it states:
"By law all cattle destined for human consumption must have SRM's removed"

I MAY be mistaken but I think that this (directly above) is an outright lie by the AMI. I am under the impression that SRM's are removed from cattle OTM. Could someone correct me if I am wrong?
 
Reader(2nd), I have a real problem with half-truths concerning TSE/BSE and info put out by the "packers" & the USDA who should be the one's looking for the "REAL" truth. Thanks for your input and knowledge of the subject. I simply do not want the beef industry ruined from mismanagement as it was in the UK.
 
Mike said:
Reader(2nd), I have a real problem with half-truths concerning TSE/BSE and info put out by the "packers" & the USDA who should be the one's looking for the "REAL" truth. Thanks for your input and knowledge of the subject. I simply do not want the beef industry ruined from mismanagement as it was in the UK.

I've said it many times and I'll say it again. The AMI is at the root of most of our problems. I truly believe that. Their quest for higher and higher profits comes at a price.
 
Sandhusker: "I've said it many times and I'll say it again. The AMI is at the root of most of our problems. I truly believe that. Their quest for higher and higher profits comes at a price."

You've said a lot of things but you offer absolutely zero evidence to support your contention of high processing and retailing profits. All you do is parrot the R-CALF lines about the AMI.

You've also suggested that USDA caters to the AMI and also follows the money BUT AMI FILED A LAWSUIT AGAINST USDA stating that USDA's caution with OTM cattle was not justified.

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT SANDHUSKER????? Hmmmm????

You can't!

You just need someone to blame and today's flavor is the AMI.


USDA is using the very best information available to base their decisions on and their number one concern in regards to BSE is consumer safety. If that was not the case, they would not be being sued by both R-CALF and the AMI.

You want to talk about money being the root of the problem, that's precisely why R-CALF is lying about the safety of Canadian beef.

IT'S ABOUT THE MONEY IN CATTLE PRICES!!!!

You bet, follow the money!!!! Lie about the safety of Canadian beef to keep their cattle out of our country. The end justifies the means.


~SH~
 
Mr. Yup,

Did a little google work on John E. Peck the author of that worthless, piece of crap article you put up and this is some of what I found.

His bio on the madpeace.org website

John E. Peck is a UW-Madison graduate student in the Land Resources program of the Institute of Environmental Studies (IES) with extensive overseas experience in Africa, Latin America and the Pacific. He participated in the Rio Earth Summit and has been involved in global justice protests from Seattle to DC to Quebec. He is also active in the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, the Wisconsin Green Party, and Family Farm Defenders, among other groups.

Speaking Topics include: current military research and influence at UW-Madison; how global free trade regimes promote militarization; the violence of corporate-driven U.S. foreign policy (special focus on Africa); the global struggle to ban landmines; the dangers of privatizing national ecurity; nonviolent direct action strategies for social change.

I am pretty sure this is the same guy. If you want to do some checking yourself do a google search using the terms in the brackets ( "john e peck" farm) if I am wrong feel free to correct me.

If this the only guy you can find to argue against the AMI fact sheet it makes the AMI fact sheet look pretty truthful to me.

TJIT[/b]
 
Yup,

Lets look at some of the sources contained in the artcle you posted.

Friends of the Earth (FOE)

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation

The consumer watchdog Public Citizen

Upton Sinclair was one of the first to describe "downer" dairy cows—too sick to walk—being dragged to slaughter in his 1906 novel about the Chicago stockyards, The Jungle

On April 16, 1996 Oprah's guest was Howard Lyman, a Montana rancher turned vegan activist.


It is obvious this guy knows little about ranching or the beef business. Most of his sources hate ranchers and the beef business and would be happy if both went bankrupt.

The fact that this very inaccurate, anti-ranching, anti-beef article was posted by a "rancher" on a fourm like this to argue against the fact based statement of the AMI makes me shake my head in amazement.

TJIT
 
Guess the way we have looked at it in our department, our surveillance has been an animal health measure.We don't care about human health here or other countrys human health as it just some satisitictics that don't impact us or our department.
 
TJIT said:
Yup,

Lets look at some of the sources contained in the artcle you posted.

Friends of the Earth (FOE)

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation

The consumer watchdog Public Citizen

Upton Sinclair was one of the first to describe "downer" dairy cows—too sick to walk—being dragged to slaughter in his 1906 novel about the Chicago stockyards, The Jungle

On April 16, 1996 Oprah's guest was Howard Lyman, a Montana rancher turned vegan activist.


It is obvious this guy knows little about ranching or the beef business. Most of his sources hate ranchers and the beef business and would be happy if both went bankrupt.

The fact that this very inaccurate, anti-ranching, anti-beef article was posted by a "rancher" on a fourm like this to argue against the fact based statement of the AMI makes me shake my head in amazement.

TJIT

Instead of attacking the messenger, why not attack what you feel is inaccurate in the article? :)
 
-------------------------------------------------------
In the "AMI BSE FACT SHEET" it states:
"By law all cattle destined for human consumption must have SRM's removed"

I MAY be mistaken but I think that this (directly above) is an outright lie by the AMI. I am under the impression that SRM's are removed from cattle OTM. Could someone correct me if I am wrong?
[/quote]

Response... Your inofrmation source is incorrect. SRM's are removed from all cattle destined for human consumption. Additioanl safeguards are taken on cattle OTM. Have a great day.
 
CJD (human), FFI (human), BSE (cows), and scrapie (found in sheep, mice, and deer) are all variants of the same thing. Depending on your own biology, you might develop a cortical-based disease (CJD or BSE) or a thalamic disease (FFI).

Diseases are associated with their most well-known vector or host. However, any species that synthesizes protein (that's all complex living creatures on this planet) is a potential host or *carrier*. An animal lacking a particular protein will accumulate prions, but the prions will not recruit additional protein. Thus, you can have a herd of deer with only a few exhibiting the disease. If one of those deer, including an 'immune' one, is killed by a wolf or dies for whatever reason, it conveys its prions, but not any immunity, to anything 'feeding' on it, be it a maggot, scavenger, or plant. Thus, the 'original' source, if there was ever one, can probably never be truly determined.

Regarding organophosphates, the effect can be simulated, but the problem in naturally occuring prion-based diseases is that the increase of mishapen prions due to protein synthesis. When these polymerize, they build up in a cell and eventually destroy it. This usually releases more of these prions into neighboring cells, continuing the process.
 
reader (the Second) said:
Mike said:
Mike, I am curious what information that you have to refute the statements made in the AMI fact sheet. Have a great day. agman
-----------------------------------

Mike is correct, Agman. You may know economics of cattle industry, but you are not a TSE expert. AMI Fact Sheet is deliberately misleading, in an almost callous manner. The incubation times are long and studies show infectivity years before the symptoms appear. Current tests are now sensitive to 20+ months and were previously sensitive to 30 months. There's no guarantee that cattle younger than 30 mos and even younger than 20 mos are not infectious. In fact, given that BSE and vCJD appears to be more prone to being passed to the very young, it is likely cattle are getting it when very young. It is TOTALLY wrong that UTM will always test negative. With more sensitive tests, some will test positive. That is a proven fact based on UTM testing positive in real life tests.

Response...I don't claim to be an expert at anything but I am confident you are not an expert either. As you state, there's no guarantee that cattle younger than 30 mos and even younger than 20 mos are not infectious. I can agree with your statement but that does not diminish the fact that the current test is incapable of detecting an infectious condition under 20 months of age. Even the Japanese have come to that conclusion. You missed an important part of the AMI's statement when suggesting they have lied by stating that "it makes no sense to test cattle that will always test negative". You forgot to mention the feed ban in place in the U.S with almost 100% compliance which was referenced as part of the comment. Over 80% of the cattle slaughtered in the U.S are under 30 months of age with a majority of that 80% under 20 months of age.

At the present time the best assurance for food safety is in the removal of SRM's from all cattle slaughter for human consumption even in a low risk country such as the U.S. I believe you and I should be a able to agree on that. Have a great day.
 
reader (2nd)..And if Agman is wrong and this guidance on SRMs is the current guidance, shame on him too.

Response... When you confirm that my information is correct will you make a post and stand corrected on your comments? Have a great day.
 

Latest posts

Top