New suspect cow

[PPRM]

May be a false positive http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/9/2/67335229.html

 

[Silver]

If I read this correctly this is a cow killed sometime last year? hmmmm. And is a weak positive like 'a little bit' pregnant? :lol:
I sure hope it is negative though.

 

[Kathy]

Apparently Marc Kaufman can't get his stories straight:

June 11/05 article, from above: (how do you get these articles, Reader?)

The three Canadian animals that have tested positive for mad cow disease, as well as the Washington state animal, were all found to have been born prior to the feed ban. If an animal born after the feed ban tests positive, the effectiveness of the ban could be called into question.

January 12/05 article by Kaufman:

Canadian officials have found a third animal infected with mad cow disease -- an almost 7-year-old beef cow with no known connection to the other infected cattle.

The cow was born after Canada banned the use of cattle feed that includes animal parts to try to keep the deadly infection from spreading.

Another reporter spouting "factoids" without validation. No qualifying "might cause" or "believed to cause" phrases in his reports.

According to Kaufman cows are guilty of a crime, even though the evidence is circumstantial and by no means proven fact. Consumption of beef has never been shown to cause vCJD.


Dr. David Brown comments in the "Madcows and an Englishman" documentary about Mark Purdey - they may be similar, but there is no proof that the one causes the other. These diseases could be similar results from simultaneous exposure of both cattle and people to the same, as yet undiscovered, agent(s).

 

[Kathy]

Wait, same Kaufman, January 12/05 article, and another screw up:

The latest animal was the youngest found in North America so far -- 6 years, 9 months old when it was slaughtered. It also is the first North American case found in a beef cow rather than a dairy cow.

Wrong, the first case discovered in northern AB (born? in Saskatchewan) was an Angus beef cow. That makes it two dairy, and two beef.

Mr. Kaufman's reports certainly do not seem very reliable.

 

[PORKER]

The department this week performed additional tests, and one of those three — a Texas beef cow — turned up positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease.

Johanns said the department's inspector general had recommended the additional testing, but the secretary did not say why.
Could this be the REASON Bill Hawks Resigned???????? He would have Known that the USDA Inspector General was digging Deep! The The GAO, a watchdog agency for Congress, is checking FDA's claims of near-total compliance with a ban aimed at keeping the protein that causes mad cow from being transmitted through animal feed, said Larry Dyckman, who is heading the congressional investigation.
A draft report by the inspector general of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says the department's expanded surveillance program for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has several flaws that could lead to unreliable estimates of the prevalence of BSE in American cattle.

The report says the plan is based on some questionable assumptions, does not accurately reflect the geographic distribution of cattle, and does not ensure the testing of all high-risk cattle. In addition, the report says that in the past 2 to 3 years, more than 500 cattle that had possible symptoms of neurologic disease were not tested for BSE.

"The problems disclosed during our review, if not corrected, may negatively impact the effectiveness of USDA's overall BSE surveillance program . . . and reduce the credibility of any assertions regarding the prevalence of BSE in the United States," the 54-page report states.

The USDA's mad cow disease testing program is a sham: it doesn't test many cows showing neurological symptoms, it falsified records of one cow to make sure it received "downer" status, and it doesn't test healthy-looking cattle at all! These are the accusations from the USDA's own inspector general and various Senators who are hammering the USDA for its lackluster practices.
Clearly, there's a rift inside the USDA. The inspector general of the agency is trying to warn the public about what goes on behind closed doors, but the rest of the agency seems to have only one mission: protect the beef industry, not the public.
Here is a link to one such case http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/24601-04-HY.pdf

 

[Mike]

Here's the link to the USDA phone in discussion to reporters.

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/06/0207.xml

Looks like we had an IHC tested cow that came back negative, then amplified the samples and tested with the "Prionic's Western Blot" and it came back positive. Obviously, the cow was in the first stages and had some prions that could not be detected using IHC the "Gold Standard" which is not quite as gold as they once believed.

Reader and I have been saying all along that if younger animals were tested using the Western Blot, we would be able to find those "sub-clinical" cases.

The consumer groups who have been threatening to blow the cover of the USDA were RIGHT it seems. This may turn out to be a big black eye for the USDA. Might be one reason Veneman is gone.

It's your turn TAM.

 

[TimH]

This is not good for anybody in the cattle business, anywhere.Regardless of the results of the tests at the British lab ,in Weybridge, further damage is being done as we speak. I just turned the TV on and CNN is running that same old ridiculous footage of a Holstein cow stumbling around on a concrete floor.
With any luck the media's short attention span will be diverted away from over-sensationalizing this. A verdict in the Michael Jackson trial might do it.

 

[Mike]

This is not good for anybody in the cattle business, anywhere.Regardless of the results of the tests at the British lab ,in Weybridge, further damage is being done as we speak. I just turned the TV on and CNN is running that same old ridiculous footage of a Holstein cow stumbling around on a concrete floor.
With any luck the media's short attention span will be diverted away from over-sensationalizing this. A verdict in the Michael Jackson trial might do it.

If not ABSOLUTELY UNCONFIRMED why would they announce this?

 

[PORKER]

Cattlemen's Beef Association said it was not unusual to have conflicting test results for BSE.

"Multiple tests can identify BSE. One commonly used method is the internationally recognized immunohistochemistry test. Another test commonly used is the Western Blot test," said NCBA president Jim McAdams in a statement. "These two types of tests have returned conflicting results on this sample."

HEY guys, are we using the ( Gold Standard BSE test) to not Find BSE or What????????????????????????
Why don't you use the test that WORKS ,Not one that Misses Most!!!!!!

 

[TimH]

Mike- "If not ABSOLUTELY UNCONFIRMED why would they announce this? "

I sort of lost track of what the policy is on announcing false positive or unconfirmed cases. Looking back, there was a lot of controversy over this before. It is one of those "damned if you do and damned if you don't" things, I suppose.
Either way, it is just plain not good for anybody.

 

[Mike]

Cattlemen's Beef Association said it was not unusual to have conflicting test results for BSE.

"Multiple tests can identify BSE. One commonly used method is the internationally recognized immunohistochemistry test. Another test commonly used is the Western Blot test," said NCBA president Jim McAdams in a statement. "These two types of tests have returned conflicting results on this sample."

HEY guys, are we using the ( Gold Standard BSE test) to not Find BSE or What????????????????????????
Why don't you use the test that WORKS ,Not one that Misses Most!!!!!!

The Prionic's Check Western test has NEVER had a false positive! The IHC is up to the interpretation of the lab tech. Even though this animal obviously had prions in it's system I will bet you the moon that IHC tests come back negative because of it's inability to detect sub-clinical cases. The inventor himself said the IHC test has gone from - science to art.

 

[PORKER]

This OLD BSE test should be thrown in the trash can.

 

[don]

kinda cute. you know it's just politics when they dig the old sample out and say, 'let's see, what result do we want today?' usda knows darn well it's a positive and now they will let the english lab confirm it.

 

[feeder]

What can we believe with our good old USDA? This might help the lawsuit in R-Calfs favor. With all the USDA's screwups some judge might just stop all beef from entering the USA till the USDA can figure what is safe and what isn't. The USDA stopped Creekstone from testing with which we lost our export market, now our Congress postponed COOL, So now McDonalds is looking on their own for source verified beef. Someone help our leaders get their heads out of their *****!!!!!

 

[PORKER]

Do WE Need to send the NCBA former employes home from Washington???Is this the Problem????Are they in a coverup????

 

[whiteface]

I agree with that totally, Don. Hmmmm, let's dig up an old suspect case from over a year ago and see what kind of test response we can get today ( to suit our agenda over a quickly approaching hearing ). That's right, they all know damn well the test is positive but couldn't use it to their advantage until now. And sure don't have the nuts to admit they're covering so send it off to someone else and then play dumb when it comes back positive. They'll spend all weekend on a CCIA tag man-hunt, to cover their own butts. They know they need another "case" to surface even though they probably still don't quite know how they're going to use it to their advantage but with the hearing comeing up you can bet it will have something to do with, "see, we had it all along, with all these Canadian cattle down here, so it must be okay to let the Canadian cattle in now that we know for sure Canada ain't going under instead just may take all our precious jobs along with our markets being so far ahead in traceback, etc. etc. etc.
Yawn.
This is so predictable a "case" surfaceing just before the hearing.
Whatever.
No hate for the Americans here just can't believe how a country can lead the nation and have such morons for leaders. This behavior is going to get a whole wack of people in trouble... Good luck to all of us. Have a good day all and thanks for reading from Canada.

 

[Anonymous]

What can we believe with our good old USDA? This might help the lawsuit in R-Calfs favor. With all the USDA's screwups some judge might just stop all beef from entering the USA till the USDA can figure what is safe and what isn't. The USDA stopped Creekstone from testing with which we lost our export market, now our Congress postponed COOL, So now McDonalds is looking on their own for source verified beef. Someone help our leaders get their heads out of their *****!!!!!

feeder- I sure agree...I think this will muddy all the waters- probably will not help any of the sides in the arguments, but sure brings USDA's ability, integrity, and credibility back into question....

Number one, it doesn't look good when the Inspector Generals Office has to come in and tell your Department how to operate- and then to again find they may have failed in their designated mission- to protect the safety of beef and the US cattle herd...Altho they did say the cow did not go into the human food chain....How many cows like her end up being rendered for chicken feed to be fed to Tysons chickens and then chicken litter to be fed to Tysons cattle?

I almost feel sorry for Johanns- I think he inherited a sinking ship from Ms. Vennaman- he may spend his entire watch cleaning up her foulups and get nothing positive accomplished.....But if he could and would clean out the packer bought bureaucracy at least that would be a big accomplishment...

 

[Tam]

Here's the link to the USDA phone in discussion to reporters.

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/06/0207.xml

Looks like we had an IHC tested cow that came back negative, then amplified the samples and tested with the "Prionic's Western Blot" and it came back positive. Obviously, the cow was in the first stages and had some prions that could not be detected using IHC the "Gold Standard" which is not quite as gold as they once believed.

Reader and I have been saying all along that if younger animals were tested using the Western Blot, we would be able to find those "sub-clinical" cases.

The consumer groups who have been threatening to blow the cover of the USDA were RIGHT it seems. This may turn out to be a big black eye for the USDA. Might be one reason Veneman is gone.

It's your turn TAM.

Why is it my turn I have guestioned the US BSE surveilance since the new system came in. I also thought if the US wanted to calm the suspicion around the multipal inconclusive test results of the Nov. Cow they should have sent the samples out of the country to have them confirmed. I was at a meeting in Feb and I was asked what I thought about the US testing and I told them then that the US will likely find a case of native BSE and I wouldn't be surprized at all if it was found by retesting the last BSE inconclusive turned negative cow.
Tell us Mike what is the US producers going to do now after R-CALF has said all meat from a country that has had BSE in their Native herd is tainted. Are you, Sandhusker and Leo going to stand up and tell the US consumer all about your firewalls and how you have had them in place for so many years and you put them in to protect the US Beef consumers and will they believe it now after all the media surrounding the USDA and the FDA.
I feel a bit sorry for the Governments too as I don't see this as all their fault. They set the rules and mind you they may have failed some in that BUT it is up to the industry to follow the rules but the government is getting blamed for the non-compliance of the industry. When is the industry going to take their fair share of the blame and clean themselves up. In the US, it seems to be eazier to blame Canada for BSE and blame the government for the rules and non compliance to them as it is to take responsibility for your industry. Feeding chicken litter may be cheaper but if it is putting your herd at risk why should it take a government law to get producers to stop it. If the law is to ban the use of ruminant proteins on ruminants then why should the government take the blame for the Beef industry not complying. do you put the law makers in prison when someone breaks any other law? no, you make the law breaker pay. If the consumer really wants to know where the beef comes from shouldn't the beef industry make sure that the packers have a way of guaranteeing that label if they put it on? No trace back is the US industrys fault too, faulty testing is also in part the industrys fault as they are not turning over the dead and dieing, and the feed bans is in great part the fault of the industry because they are the ones not complying to laws already on the books. Some in Canada also want to blame the government but it's not all the governments fault the lawsuit here is because the lawyers say the government should have known and made the laws sooner well the ranchers should also have known and they still needed laws to stop the feeding of that stuff. I will be watching the US producers to see if they will be sueing the USDA for the noncompliance, and the fact that they agreed that Chicken litter was a sourse of cross contamination and did nothing to stop the feeding of it. Canada's lawsuit is for 7 billion what will the US lawsuit be for?

 

[Maple Leaf Angus]

It's your turn TAM.

Why is it my turn . . .

I wouldn't take that as an insult or attack, Tam. No one else was asked to give their opinion on this thread. Indeed, many offer a lot of opinion.

Take Mike's prompt as an indicator that your thoughts have gained some respect around here.

 

[Anonymous]

According to the USDA news conference they concentrated the brain material at 20 times the normal concentration to get the weak positive test- Why :? Sounds like another hypothetical experiment being done with a science thats made up of hypothesis an theory....