Mike said:
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?
