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EAT THAT! STOP THE MADNESS!

flounder

Well-known member
Eat that? Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing, Stop the Madness

Editorial

June 19, 2008, 8:42PM

Eat that? Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer recently assured Americans that USDA inspectors check "every single" processed American beef carcass. Charitably put, his statement is highly misleading. USDA inspections are perfunctory and fall far short of checks performed by other countries' meat watchdogs.

The issue arose after South Korea agreed this April to lift most of the restrictions it had placed on U.S. beef imports. That prompted intense protests by South Koreans who say they fear mad cow disease in U.S. beef. They want their government to negotiate a tougher deal or to scrap it.

In Texas last week touring meat processing plants, Secretary Schafer defended domestic meats as safe.

"Every single carcass that's processed is inspected by a USDA inspector," Schafer told reporters in San Antonio. "That beef is stamped A-OK, and we want to assure our consumers here in the United States, as well as our consumers ... in foreign countries, that we provide a good, clean, safe, abundant food supply here."

But what exactly is entailed in that inspection? According to the USDA, a government inspector is on site whenever cows are slaughtered and processed. The inspectors are supposed to look at every carcass and determine whether the meat is fit for human consumption. Basically, they have a look and maybe a sniff and a feel. That's it.

But even that cursory process might be more than consumers are actually getting. The Web abounds with reports, including firsthand accounts and interviews with reputable news organizations, in which USDA inspectors complain that they can't possibly carry out their job in a meaningful way. There are too few of them to deal with the number of cattle slaughtered each hour in modern meat-processing facilities.

The speed with which cattle are killed, skinned and cut up in these plants makes the job dangerous for the meat processors, to say nothing of inspectors who attempt to get close enough to a side of beef for a poke and a sniff. The high speed of operations sometimes does not allow cows to be properly stunned and bled to death by the time the skinning and cutting begins. That's not only cruel and inhumane, but also detrimental to food safety. Struggling animals mean meat falling on filthy floors, improper evisceration that spills feces onto meat and greater opportunities for cross-carcass contamination.

The shortage of inspectors also means that a USDA employee cannot always be available to inspect animals before they are killed to ensure that so-called downer cows are not processed. Cattle that cannot walk into the slaughterhouse because they are diseased or injured are more likely to be animals that carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.

In February, the Humane Society of the United States released videotapes showing meat workers shocking nonambulatory cows, bumping them with forklifts and otherwise abusing them to force them onto their legs long enough to be certified for slaughter.

That's why many American consumers are voting with their pocketbooks for better meats. They are turning to local farmer's markets for cruelty-free meats from pasture-raised animals, forgoing meat from industrially raised cows, chickens and pigs that spend their lives packed into filthy cages, fed unhealthy diets and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones.

Increasingly available at local farmer's markets is beef from cows that are butchered humanely and in small numbers. As one farmer at Houston's Bayou City Farmer's Market put it one recent Saturday morning, "These are cows who have just one bad day."

Given the alternative practiced in processing plants, it's no wonder many foreign buyers of U.S. meat products are skeptical. Industrial beef producers employ practices that can be, in a word, repulsive. Until 1997, the United States permitted feeding cattle on beef waste products. It tested very few animals for mad cow disease, even though Europe was testing 10 million of its cattle each year, and the Japanese were testing each one. USDA allowed downer cattle into the food supply, a practice now banned. A 2004 ban on feeding cow's blood mixed with formula to calves and chicken droppings to cows was never put into practice.

According to The New York Times, the Agriculture Department has been fighting a lawsuit from a Kansas beef producer over the department's refusal to allow it to test for mad cow disease so that the producer can resume beef shipments to Japan.

None of this is reassuring. Instead of spouting empty rhetoric that U.S. beef is "the safest in the world," the USDA owes it to consumers to guarantee that meat meant for their dinner plates is processed without unnecessary cruelty and with standards that will produce a clean product that's safe to eat.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5847220.html

Op-Ed Contributor Stop the Madness

By MICHAEL HANSEN Published: June 20, 2008

THE Korean beef market, once the third-largest importer of American beef, has shut its doors to the United States. Why? Because Koreans are worried about eating meat tainted with mad cow disease, which can be fatal to humans. Recent attempts by Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, to reopen the market have brought tens of thousands of demonstrators to the streets in protest.

American beef producers could easily allay those fears by subjecting every cow at slaughter to the so-called rapid test, which costs about $20 per carcass and screens for this brain-wasting disease in a few hours rather than days. But the United States Department of Agriculture won’t allow that.

In 2004, Creekstone Farms in Arkansas City, Kan., wanted to test the cattle it slaughters to comply with the wishes of its Korean and Japanese customers. But the department ruled that the rapid test could only be used as part of its own mad cow surveillance program, which randomly checks about 1 in 1,000 dead and slaughtered cattle in the United States every year. The sale of the kits to private companies is prohibited under an obscure 1913 law that allows the department to prohibit veterinary products that it considers “worthless.”

Creekstone sued the government in 2006, arguing in court that the Agriculture Department could not deem worthless a test that it used in its own surveillance program. The court agreed, but the department appealed. A decision is expected soon.

It is hard to understand why the Agriculture Department wants to stand in the way. Yes, the test has limitations: it can miss a case of mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in the very early stages of incubation. But it can catch the disease in later stages, before animals show symptoms. Between 2001 and 2006, the European Union used the test to turn up 1,117 cases of mad cow disease in seemingly healthy cattle approved for slaughter.

Ideally, the Agriculture Department would follow the rules set up in Europe and Japan that require every cow over a certain age to be tested before being slaughtered. At the very least the department should not prevent private companies from testing.

Companies that use the rapid test should also be allowed to label their meat as having been “tested for mad cow” for American consumers who would like this extra level of protection. A Consumers Union national survey done in January 2004 found that 71 percent of adults who eat beef would pay more to support testing, and of those, 95 percent were willing to spend 10 cents more per pound for tested meat.

In the Creekstone case, the Agriculture Department argued that the tests should be prohibited because if one company started using them, consumer demand would drive all companies to use them, and that would add to the price of beef. But would that be such a bad thing? Isn’t this how the laws of supply and demand are supposed to work?

Most Americans, like Koreans, understand that testing for mad cow could save lives — and they’d like to have that option.

Michael Hansen is a senior scientist at Consumers Union.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20hansen.html?hp


full text ;


USDA TO KOREA AND THE WORLD, EAT THAT AND LIKE IT

http://usdavskorea.blogspot.com/2008/06/usda-to-korea-and-world-eat-that-and.html


EAT THAT !


Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518

---------- https://lists.aegee.org/bse-l.html ----------
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
I'd like to ask the one-man foundation and those who blasted R-CALF for standing with Consumer's Union because CU was "anti-beef"; Why would an anti-beef group be writing on enhancing the safety of beef and reporting on what would make beef consumers happier? Wouldn't this be a prime opportunity for an anti-beef group to deliver their "Don't eat beef" message? Where is it?

Kinda shows to me what Dittmer and his followers are made of..... hot air and natural fertilizer.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
The weekly Health e-mail I received from News.max.....
Interestingly it appears the Dr. doesn't agree with USDA...At least they are blaming the right place, and not the ranchers.....


Blaylock Tip of the Week

How to Avoid Poisonous Foods

Most people give more thought to what they’re going to wear than what they’re going to put in their mouths. When it comes time to get groceries, they simply make a run to the local store and stock up, thinking the FDA is watching over us and keeping food supplies safe.

Recent scares with salmonella poisoning in tomatoes show our food supply may not be as safe as we think. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year 76 million Americans get sick from the foods they eat, and 300,000 end up in the hospital. Another 5,000 end up in the cemetery.

But the actual problem is much worse. In addition to contaminated foods, many more subtle diseases occur because of food additives legally permitted by the government. In addition, there is the rising danger of imported foods and beverages. Increasingly, we get our foods and food additives from dubious sources such as communist China and other countries where there are little or no personal or government standards for processing. Remember the pets that died over a year ago from contaminated wheat gluten imported from China?

As bad as the problems are from imported foods, domestic food processing also offers significant health worries for you and your family. Commercially produced foods contain many additives, such as MSG, as well as herbicides and pesticides. All have been linked to an increased risk of neurological diseases and other health woes including cancer.

Here are some steps you can take to reduce your risk of being poisoned by your food:

Consider growing your own vegetables and fruits. They can be grown in your yard or in hydroponic gardens indoors.
Buy locally grown foods. Talk to local farmers and ask about pesticide and herbicide use. Organic farms are popping up all over the place, and have been growing at a rate of 15 percent a year.
Choose organically fed and free-range meats. But don’t expect even organic meats to automatically free you from the fear of mad cow disease. Unfortunately, the government prevents cattle ranches from testing their cattle for mad cow disease.
Wash vegetables and fruits. To properly wash your vegetables, fill a two-gallon pot with purified water (filtered) and add two caps of vegetable wash, such as Fit Fruit & Vegetable Wash.
When buying organic produce, make sure that it looks healthy. Plants with spots and bruises are not safe to eat.
Avoid injected meats and poultry. Most whole birds and many hams have a carefully-worded label that says that they were injected with either gluten, natural flavors, or hydrolyzed protein extracts. In essence, this is a glutamate mixture much like MSG. And like MSG, it is toxic to your body, especially the brain.
Wash your poultry well. It is also important to wash whole birds before you cook them. Many are covered in chemicals and bacteria contamination.
Cook all meats completely through, even steaks. Most animals, especially cattle and chickens, are infected with carcinogenic viruses and there is compelling evidence that humans can develop cancer from these viruses.
For more detailed information on how to keep your family’s food supply safe, go here to learn about my special report “How to Avoid Poisonous Foods.”

http://w3.newsmax.com/blaylock/37a.cfm?s=al&promo_code=64A6-1
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Topps is now winding down its bankruptcy. Its assets were sold Jan. 8 for more than $1.25 million, with all but $107,500 going to RBS Citizens Bank of Philadelphia, which had a secured claim because it had loaned Topps $14.5 million.

More than 5,000 other creditors, which include supermarkets and individuals who bought burgers, have unsecured claims of about $1 million. They could get a share of the $107,500, and eventually see more money through litigation by the court-appointed trustee for Topps.

Meanwhile, the former Topps plant reopened in March as Onegreat Burger Co. after an affiliate of Hawthorne-based Premio Foods, a sausage maker, acquired the remainder of the Topps lease and its flash-freezing equipment for $250,000 during the bankruptcy proceedings.

“We’ve made it an entirely new state-of the art operation, focused on food safety and quality products,” Premio and Onegreat Burger President Marc Cinque said.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91294741
 

flounder

Well-known member
flounder said:
Eat that? Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing, Stop the Madness

Editorial

June 19, 2008, 8:42PM

Eat that? Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
snip...end...tss--



Viewpoints, Outlook

June 26, 2008, 7:46PM LETTERS Chewing over 'Eat that?'

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Editorial was wrong

The June 19 editorial "Eat that?" was nothing but a mouthpiece for anti-meat and vegetarian groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Beef producers don't condone inhumane treatments like those shown in the videos that HSUS released in February. For the Chronicle to imply that we employ such practices is just plain wrong.

As beef producers and members of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, we strive to pro-vide consumers with a safe product that we raise responsi-bly. To assume anything less is an insult to more than 15,000 ranchers and the hard-working families and employees who support them.

DAVE SCOTT first vice president, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, Richmond

Inspection failures

I had to reply to the letter "U.S. deserves 'safest' label," by reader Andrew Liu in his response Monday to the editorial "Eat that? / Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing." That editorial was a long time coming and a breath of fresh air, compared to the "junk science" the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been feeding us for years.

The FDA and USDA have failed us at every turn, from the failed, partial and voluntary mad cow feed ban of Aug. 4, 1997, to the infamous failed June 2004 enhanced BSE surveillance program, where the testing and surveillance protocols were blundered from the beginning to the end, and still are to this day.

Liu spoke of only three mad cows documented in the United States, two of which were of the "atypical BSE" in Alabama and Texas. Atypical BSE is a more virulent strain than the typical United Kingdom BSE. Simply put, if you don't look, you will not find. The USDA knows this, and this is why testing was shut down to almost nothing after the last two atypical BSE cases were found. It simply did not want to document any more cases.

In one sentence Liu stated, "while it might be true that U.S. cows are poorly inspected." He also said "the fact is in terms of actual cases of mad cow disease, the United States has only had three infected cows." Well, one might figure that the only three documented cases to date of mad cow in the United States might be due to the fact that "U.S. cows are poorly inspected." Ya think?

TERRY S. SINGELTARY SR. Bacliff

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5859009.html

LETTERS ABOVE WERE IN REPLY TO THIS ARTICLE BELOW ;

Eat that? Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing, Stop the Madness

Editorial

June 19, 2008, 8:42PM

Eat that? Agriculture secretary's reassurance rings hollow in light of current industrial beef processing

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer recently assured Americans that USDA inspectors check "every single" processed American beef carcass. Charitably put, his statement is highly misleading. USDA inspections are perfunctory and fall far short of checks performed by other countries' meat watchdogs.

The issue arose after South Korea agreed this April to lift most of the restrictions it had placed on U.S. beef imports. That prompted intense protests by South Koreans who say they fear mad cow disease in U.S. beef. They want their government to negotiate a tougher deal or to scrap it.

In Texas last week touring meat processing plants, Secretary Schafer defended domestic meats as safe.

"Every single carcass that's processed is inspected by a USDA inspector," Schafer told reporters in San Antonio. "That beef is stamped A-OK, and we want to assure our consumers here in the United States, as well as our consumers ... in foreign countries, that we provide a good, clean, safe, abundant food supply here."

But what exactly is entailed in that inspection? According to the USDA, a government inspector is on site whenever cows are slaughtered and processed. The inspectors are supposed to look at every carcass and determine whether the meat is fit for human consumption. Basically, they have a look and maybe a sniff and a feel. That's it.

But even that cursory process might be more than consumers are actually getting. The Web abounds with reports, including firsthand accounts and interviews with reputable news organizations, in which USDA inspectors complain that they can't possibly carry out their job in a meaningful way. There are too few of them to deal with the number of cattle slaughtered each hour in modern meat-processing facilities.

The speed with which cattle are killed, skinned and cut up in these plants makes the job dangerous for the meat processors, to say nothing of inspectors who attempt to get close enough to a side of beef for a poke and a sniff. The high speed of operations sometimes does not allow cows to be properly stunned and bled to death by the time the skinning and cutting begins. That's not only cruel and inhumane, but also detrimental to food safety. Struggling animals mean meat falling on filthy floors, improper evisceration that spills feces onto meat and greater opportunities for cross-carcass contamination.

The shortage of inspectors also means that a USDA employee cannot always be available to inspect animals before they are killed to ensure that so-called downer cows are not processed. Cattle that cannot walk into the slaughterhouse because they are diseased or injured are more likely to be animals that carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.

In February, the Humane Society of the United States released videotapes showing meat workers shocking nonambulatory cows, bumping them with forklifts and otherwise abusing them to force them onto their legs long enough to be certified for slaughter.

That's why many American consumers are voting with their pocketbooks for better meats. They are turning to local farmer's markets for cruelty-free meats from pasture-raised animals, forgoing meat from industrially raised cows, chickens and pigs that spend their lives packed into filthy cages, fed unhealthy diets and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones.

Increasingly available at local farmer's markets is beef from cows that are butchered humanely and in small numbers. As one farmer at Houston's Bayou City Farmer's Market put it one recent Saturday morning, "These are cows who have just one bad day."

Given the alternative practiced in processing plants, it's no wonder many foreign buyers of U.S. meat products are skeptical. Industrial beef producers employ practices that can be, in a word, repulsive. Until 1997, the United States permitted feeding cattle on beef waste products. It tested very few animals for mad cow disease, even though Europe was testing 10 million of its cattle each year, and the Japanese were testing each one. USDA allowed downer cattle into the food supply, a practice now banned. A 2004 ban on feeding cow's blood mixed with formula to calves and chicken droppings to cows was never put into practice.

According to The New York Times, the Agriculture Department has been fighting a lawsuit from a Kansas beef producer over the department's refusal to allow it to test for mad cow disease so that the producer can resume beef shipments to Japan.

None of this is reassuring. Instead of spouting empty rhetoric that U.S. beef is "the safest in the world," the USDA owes it to consumers to guarantee that meat meant for their dinner plates is processed without unnecessary cruelty and with standards that will produce a clean product that's safe to eat.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5847220.html

SINCE THEN, out just yesterday ;

----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:47 AM Subject: [BSE-L] Texas Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials

-------------------- [email protected] --------------------

Texas Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials

Recall Release CLASS II RECALL FSIS-RC-020-2008 HEALTH RISK: LOW

Congressional and Public Affairs (202) 720-9113 Peggy Riek

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2008 – Beltex Corporation, doing business as Frontier Meats, a Fort Worth, Texas, establishment, is recalling approximately 2,850 pounds of fresh cattle heads which may contain specified risk materials (SRMs), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today.

SRMs are tissues that are known to contain the infective agent in cattle infected with BSE, as well as materials that are closely associated with these potentially infective tissues. Therefore, FSIS prohibits SRMs from use as human food to minimize potential human exposure to the BSE agent.

The products subject to recall include: Cases of "BEEF WHOLE HEAD." Each shipping package bears the establishment number "EST. 7041B" inside the USDA mark of inspection, as well as a package code of "51904" or "63922."

The company is recalling all products packed between May 31, 2007, and June 24, 2008. These products were distributed to retail establishments and lunch carts in the Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas, area.

The problem was discovered by the State of Texas officials during a routine inspection at a retail establishment.

Media and consumers with questions about the recall should contact the company Sales Department at (817) 624-1136.

Consumers with food safety questions can “Ask Karen,” the FSIS virtual representative available 24 hours a day at AskKaren.gov. The toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) is available in English and Spanish and can be reached from l0 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Recorded food safety messages are available 24 hours a day.

#

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/Recall_020_2008_Release/index.asp

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Texas Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials

http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2008/06/texas-firm-recalls-cattle-heads-that.html

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

FDA BSE/Ruminant Feed Inspections Firms Inventory Report Texas Legend Ranch OAI 05/10/2008

http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2008/05/fda-bseruminant-feed-inspections-firms.html

In 2007, in one weekly enforcement report, the fda recalled 10,000,000+ pounds of BANNED MAD COW FEED, 'in commerce', and i can tell you that most of it was fed out ;

10,000,000+ LBS. of PROHIBITED BANNED MAD COW FEED I.E. MBM IN COMMERCE USA 2007

Date: March 21, 2007 at 2:27 pm PST REASON Blood meal used to make cattle feed was recalled because it was cross-contaminated with prohibited bovine meat and bone meal that had been manufactured on common equipment and labeling did not bear cautionary BSE statement. VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE 42,090 lbs. DISTRIBUTION WI

REASON Products manufactured from bulk feed containing blood meal that was cross contaminated with prohibited meat and bone meal and the labeling did not bear cautionary BSE statement. VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE 9,997,976 lbs. DISTRIBUTION ID and NV

END OF ENFORCEMENT REPORT FOR MARCH 21, 2007

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/enforce/2007/ENF00996.html

Subject: MAD COW FEED RECALL USA SEPT 6, 2006 1961.72 TONS IN COMMERCE AL, TN, AND WV Date: September 6, 2006 at 7:58 am PST

snip... see listings and references of enormous amounts of banned mad cow protein 'in commerce' in 2006 and 2005 ;

see full text ;

Friday, April 25, 2008

Substances Prohibited From Use in Animal Food or Feed [Docket No. 2002N-0273] (Formerly Docket No. 02N-0273) RIN 0910-AF46

http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2008/04/substances-prohibited-from-use-in.html

SPECIFIED RISK MATERIALS

http://madcowspontaneousnot.blogspot.com/2008/02/specified-risk-materials-srm.html

SRM MAD COW RECALL 406 THOUSAND POUNDS CATTLE HEADS WITH TONSILS KANSAS

http://cjdmadcowbaseoct2007.blogspot.com/2008/04/srm-mad-cow-recall-406-thousand-pounds.html

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Texas Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials

http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2008/06/texas-firm-recalls-cattle-heads-that.html

TSS

-------------------- [email protected] --------------------

Please remember, the last two mad cows documented in the USA i.e. Alabama and Texas, both were of the 'atypical' BSE strain, and immediately after that, the USDA shut down the testing from 470,000 to 40,000 in the U.S. in 2007 out of about 35 million cattle slaughtered. also, science is showing that some of these atypical cases are more virulent to humans than the typical UK BSE strain ;

***Atypical forms of BSE have emerged which, although rare, appear to be more virulent than the classical BSE that causes vCJD.***

Progress Report from the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center

An Update from Stephen M. Sergay, MB, BCh & Pierluigi Gambetti, MD

April 3, 2008

http://www.aan.com/news/?event=read&article_id=4397&page=72.45.45

In this context, a word is in order about the US testing program. After the discovery of the first (imported) cow in 2003, the magnitude of testing was much increased, reaching a level of >400,000 tests in 2005 (Figure 4). Neither of the 2 more recently indigenously infected older animals with nonspecific clinical features would have been detected without such testing, and neither would have been identified as atypical without confirmatory Western blots. Despite these facts, surveillance has now been decimated to 40,000 annual tests (USDA news release no. 0255.06, July 20, 2006) and invites the accusation that the United States will never know the true status of its involvement with BSE.

In short, a great deal of further work will need to be done before the phenotypic features and prevalence of atypical BSE are understood. More than a single strain may have been present from the beginning of the epidemic, but this possibility has been overlooked by virtue of the absence of widespread Western blot confirmatory testing of positive screening test results; or these new phenotypes may be found, at least in part, to result from infections at an older age by a typical BSE agent, rather than neonatal infections with new "strains" of BSE. Neither alternative has yet been investigated.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0965.htm

IF BSE is not in the USA (just not documented for many different reasons), and only atypical BSE is in the USA (plus CWD, plus, many strains of Scrapie, and Now the Nor-98 documented in 5 different states, plus TME, then why would human mad cow in the USA look like the UK nvCJD from UK BSE cows ? it was shown long ago in studies at Mission Texas that experimental transmission of USA Scrapie to USA Bovine, DID NOT LOOK LIKE UK BSE. so again, in short, why would human mad cow in the USA look like human mad cow in the UK i.e. the (nvCJD). however, I believe that BSE has been in the USA untested and undocumented for years. why on earth then does the USDA refuse to allow creekstone or anyone else test their product? simple, if you don't look/test, you don't find.

snip...

please see full text ;

http://cjdmadcowbaseoct2007.blogspot.com/2008/06/portsmouth-woman-did-not-die-of-mad-cow.html

A novel human disease with abnormal prion protein sensitive to protease (prionopathy)

http://cjdmadcowbaseoct2007.blogspot.com/2008/06/novel-human-disease-with-abnormal-prion.html

HUMAN and ANIMAL TSE Classifications i.e. mad cow disease and the UKBSEnvCJD only theory JUNE 2008

http://cjdmadcowbaseoct2007.blogspot.com/2008/06/human-and-animal-tse-classifications-ie.html

U.S. slams door on revising S. Korea beef import pact

June 11, 2008, 10:14PM

http://usdavskorea.blogspot.com/2008/06/us-slams-door-on-revising-s-korea-beef.html

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

OIE Recognition of the BSE Status of Members RESOLUTION No. XXI (Adopted by the International Committee of the OIE on 27 May 2008)

http://usdavskorea.blogspot.com/2008/06/oie-recognition-of-bse-status-of.html

http://organicconsumers.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=1566

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Export Requirements for the Republic of Korea IMPORT HEALTH REQUIREMENTS FOR U.S. BEEF AND BEEF PRODUCTS

http://usdavskorea.blogspot.com/2008/06/export-requirements-for-republic-of.html

Why Americans, As Well as Koreans, Should Be Worried About Mad Cow Tainted USA Beef

By Terry S. Singeltary Sr. May 15, 2008

Straight to the Source

Web Note: This is an important commentary by Terry S. Singeltary Sr., on a recent Business Week story on the controversy in South Korea over their government's lifting on the ban on conventional (non-organic) beef, despite the fact that the USDA is still allowing slaughterhouse waste and blood and manure to be fed to cows, and refusing to test all cows at slaughter. See the Mad Cow section of the OCA website for in-depth information. Terry is a regular blogger on the OCA website on Mad Cow issues.

Ronnie Cummins

One Korean official says the probability of a human being catching a mad cow disease by eating U.S. beef is like the one of a golf player scoring a hole-in-one and then being killed by lightning.

this is typical BSe. you here industry groups comment 'your more likely to get hit by a car than die from CJD'. well, maybe so, but my mother and many more did not die from getting hit by a car, they died from CJD, my mothers being the hvCJD (confirmed), and my neighbors mother died from CJD (confirmed). the UKBSEnvCJD _only_ theory is incorrect. there are more strains of mad cow than the UK BSE in beef to nvCJD in humans in the UK. The deception by the USDA, FDA, and the Bush administration about mad cow disease, CJD, and all Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy over the past 8 years have been outrageous, to a point of being criminal. I am vested in nothing, but the truth.

snip...see full text ;

http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org/articles/article_12387.cfm

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Concerned Americans against Mad Cow Disease STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY with Koreans May 13, 2008

http://usdavskorea.blogspot.com/2008/05/concerned-americans-against-mad-cow.html

http://flounder068.vox.com/library/post/concerned-americans-against-mad-cow-disease-statement-of-solidarity-with-koreans-may-13-2008.html

http://www.koreantopnews.com/

BSE YOUNGEST AGE STATISTICS UNDER 30 MONTHS

http://bseyoungestage.blogspot.com/

http://flounder068.vox.com/library/post/bse-youngest-age-statistics-under-30-months.html

Friday, June 20, 2008

USDA TO KOREA AND THE WORLD, EAT THAT AND LIKE IT

http://usdavskorea.blogspot.com/2008/06/usda-to-korea-and-world-eat-that-and.html

EAT THAT !

Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Scheme to Irradiate Veggies May Have Problems--An Admission by Food Industrial Complex of Failure to Act on Root Causes of E. Coli and Salmonella Outbreaks
By Frank Pecarich
Retired Soil Scientist

"The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year."— John Foster Dulles

U.S. consumers are more concerned about the safety of the food they eat than they are about the war in Iraq or global warming, according to the recent Center for Food Integrity’s (CFI) annual Consumer Trust Survey. Fewer than 20 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed that government agencies are doing a good job ensuring the safety of the food we eat.

Since the Monterey County 2006 spinach E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak two years ago, the food poisoning stories from pathogens such as E. coli 0157:H7, Salmonella, and listeria keep hitting the front page, often on a daily basis. During those two years, we have warned the consumer that this issue of food borne pathogens would not be going away anytime soon. The reason we have been confident of that prediction is that the food producing industry has not done anything meaningful to take the danger away from the consumer.

In fact, much of what has gone on has been a public relations smokescreen. We have in previous articles illustrated some examples of how the food production industry has sought to convince the consumer that proper corrective measures are being taken to insure the health and safety of the public. Many of those such as fencing off fields to prevent wandering animals from getting into the fields or a California Department of Fish and Game program asking hunters to gather deer and other wild animal feces while hunting have been almost comical.
The last few weeks has brought the news that the FDA and the vegetable industrial complex have thrown in the towel in cleaning up food production practices by pushing towards the right to irradiate foods such as leafy greens. For me this is prima facie evidence that growers, packers and distributors realize that the essential corrections to this problem involve actions they do not wish to consider or undertake. Their solution then is to zap the pathogen critters with microwaves and call it good.

There is a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for this idea coming from the grower-packer industry. For example, Monterey, California-based Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc. is in no rush to adopt the technology. “As with all technologies having to do with improving the safety of product, it’s one of several areas that we’re looking into,” said Ray De Riggi, Dole President. “The one problem that has been with irradiation is that it had a tendency to destroy the product, but evidently as this technology advances that’s not as true as it was in the past.”


FDA requires that lettuce and spinach that have been irradiated will have the logo "radura" on their packaging, along with the phrase "Treated with radiation" or "Treated by irradiation".

Stephen Hedges in the Chicago Tribune writes that this is the latest example of the FDA using a technical fix to treat a biological problem. He suggests that these irradiation decisions including approving irradiation on meat, approving the application of carbon monoxide gas to keep meat red, approving the sale of meat and dairy products from cloned cows — "has broadened the philosophical divide between food manufacturers, which generally favor the expanded use of such technology, and many food safety and organic food groups that oppose it."

Nutrients in the vegetable affected by irradiation

Along with others, Science Policy Analyst at the Centre for Food Safety, Bill Freese, has argued that irradiation will rob fresh spinach of some of its essential nutrients -- phytonutrients -- and he claims the technology avoids tackling the problem at its source. "Irradiation is not the solution to food-borne illness," said Freese. "In fact, it serves to distract attention from the unsanitary conditions of industrial agriculture that create the problem in the first place."

Even in its announcement of the leafy greens irradiation plan, the FDA acknowledged, and was reported by WebMD, that irradiation of spinach does indeed affect levels of two phytonutrients, folate and vitamin A.

Other groups have said that irradiation lowers nutritional value and can create unsafe chemicals, as well as ruin taste. Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food and Water Watch called the FDA ruling "a total cop-out". She told the New York Times that: "They don't have the resources, the authority or the political will to really protect consumers from unsafe food."

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director for Food & Water Watch in Washington, D.C. has said “Nearly two years after a major E. coli outbreak was linked to California spinach, it is unbelievable that the FDA's first action on is this issue is to turn to irradiation rather than focus on how to prevent contamination of these crops. This just illustrates once again how misplaced this agency's priorities really are. Instead of beefing up its capacity to inspect food facilities or test food for contamination, all the FDA has to offer consumers is an impractical, ineffective and very expensive gimmick like irradiation.”

Irradiation is not a globally popular alternative

While irradiation may be slowly gaining consumer acceptance in the US and several other countries, the technology has been slow to get support within many parts of Europe. To date, about 50 countries have approved about 60 products to be irradiated, with the US, South Africa, the Netherlands, Thailand and France among the leaders in adopting the technology.

However, regulations on food irradiation in the European Union are currently not fully harmonized. EU Directive 1999/2/EC establishes a framework for controlling irradiated foods, their labeling and importation, while EU Directive 1999/3 establishes an initial positive list of foods which may be irradiated and traded freely between member states.

So far the positive list has only one food category - dried aromatic herbs, spices and vegetable seasonings. Some countries, such as Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK, allow other foods to be irradiated. To be sure, the use of irradiated food is controversial at best and could harm the global marketing of US vegetables.

As a scientist I am still assessing this proposed solution to killing pathogens before they get to your plate. I believe the bigger issue is how the consumer will relate to this solution and the answers to that question are just beginning to trickle in. My guess is that the vegetable industry will have to employee even more PR specialists to get this idea swallowed by the public. The difficulty of that PR sell is being expressed now on the Internet. As one wag at a food safety blog put it, “At last! Now I can eat my spinach in the dark!”

Frank Pecarich retired from the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1987. During his 26 year federal career he worked as a soil scientist with the USDA on the now- published Soil Survey for Monterey County. He lives in Ventura County.

Related articles that have been published by the California Progress Report by Mr. Pecarich can be found under the topic of Food Safety.

Posted on August 28, 2008
 

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