Sandhusker said:
I just had an idea. Why don't we apply Q's logic to our situation down here. If we do, we find out that we can't hardly have any more positive cows. I mean, look at the dates; The last cow was what, 13 years old? That was a couple of years ago. That would make her 15 now, and there can't be many 15 year old cows running around. Heck, we've got to be virtually BSE free - look at the dates! :roll: :roll: :roll:
i got a better idea there sandhuskey.
why dont the USDA et al and r-calf stop trying to cover up mad cow disease of all strains here in the USA$$$
sandhuskey do you really believe the USA does not have BSE???
we have 1 documented BSE that is said to have been imported from Canada.
we have 2 documented h-BASE in Texas and Alabama.
we have 1 other highly suspect BSE/h-BASE cow in Texas that was stumbling and staggering around so bad, that higher ups in Austin refused the testing of that cow, as so a confirmation can be made.
FDA Statement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Statement
May 4, 2004
Media Inquiries: 301-827-6242
Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA
Statement on Texas Cow With Central Nervous System Symptoms
On Friday, April 30 th , the Food and Drug Administration learned that a cow with central nervous system symptoms had been killed and shipped to a processor for rendering into animal protein for use in animal feed.
FDA, which is responsible for the safety of animal feed, immediately began an investigation. On Friday and throughout the weekend, FDA investigators inspected the slaughterhouse, the rendering facility, the farm where the animal came from, and the processor that initially received the cow from the slaughterhouse.
FDA's investigation showed that the animal in question had already been rendered into "meat and bone meal" (a type of protein animal feed). Over the weekend FDA was able to track down all the implicated material. That material is being held by the firm, which is cooperating fully with FDA....snip...END
The investigation identified one feed which contained an animal protein source that could not be identified. The investigation also found one feed mill that supplied feed to the farm that had used ruminant MBM in feed formulations for non-ruminant species after the BSE/Ruminant Feed rule went into effect, which is permitted under the rule, and that several feed mills had used ruminant MBM in feeds prior to the feed ban. Although the investigation did not identify a specific feed source as the likely cause of this animal's infection, it is probable that the most likely route of exposure for this animal was consumption of an animal feed containing mammalian protein prior to the implementation of the BSE/Ruminant Feed rule in 1997.
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/texasfeedrpt.htm
BSE testing protocol so flawed after a decade+ of boasting how great it was, and in reality at the end, proven to be so flawed, had to be changed again. so flawed that in reality a secret testing proved this cow to actually have been positive, but those secret test were supressed, and the cow deemed negative, until another act of congress to prove the cow in question was actually positive.
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/.d/1/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2005/06/0232.xml&PC_7_2_5JM_navtype=RT&PC_7_2_5JM_parentnav=LATEST_RELEASES&PC_7_
2_5JM_navid=NEWS_RELEASE#7_2_5JM
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/06/0217.xml
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/06/0218.xml
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/06/0206.xml
APHIS's epidemiological investigation attempted to trace all adult animals that left the index farm after 1990. The investigation also attempted to trace all progeny born within two years of the index animal's death.
Together these animals are called "animals of interest." These steps are consistent with the guidance for epidemiological investigations and to detections of BSE issued by the International Animal Health governing body or the OIE.
During the course of this investigation, USDA removed and tested a total of 67 animals of interest from the farm where the index animal's herd originated. All of these animals tested negative for BSE.
A total of 200 additional adult animals of interest were determined to have left the index farm. Of these 200, APHIS determined that 143 animals were slaughtered, 2 animals were found alive but one was determined not to be of interest because of its age, and the other tested negative for BSE. 34 animals were presumed dead, 1 is known dead, and the remaining 20 are classified as "untraceable."
In addition to the adult animals, we also looked for two calves born to the index animal. Due to record-keeping and identification issues, we had to trace 213 calves. Of these 213, 208 entered feeding and slaughter channels, 4 are presumed to have entered feeding and slaughter channels, and 1 calf was untraceable.
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/08/0339.xml
"The sample was submitted to us by a private veterinarian. As an extension of our enhanced surveillance program, accredited private veterinarians who often visit farms in remote areas collect samples when warranted. The sample in question today was taken from a cow that was at least 12 years of age and experienced complications during calving.
"The veterinarian treated the sample with a preservative which readies it for testing using the immunohistochemistry test, an internationally recognized confirmatory test for BSE.
"Neither the rapid screening test nor the Western blot confirmatory test can be conducted on a sample that has been preserved. Our laboratory ran the IHC test on the sample and received non-definitive results that suggest the need for further testing.
"As we have previously experienced, it is possible for an IHC test to yield differing results, depending on the slice of tissue that is tested. Therefore scientists at our laboratory and at Weybridge will run the IHC test on additional slices of tissue from this animal to determine whether or not it was infected with BSE.
"We will announce results as soon as they are compiled, which we expect to occur by next week.
snip...
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/07/0280.xml
Testing History on This Animal:
• In November 2004, a sample from this animal
returned inconclusive for BSE on a Biorad screening
test.
• The sample was subjected to an IHC confirmatory
test, which returned negative.
• USDA scientists also ran an additional, experimental
IHC "rapid" tissue fixation test for academic purposes,
which can be conducted more quickly than the IHC
confirmatory test and is therefore of interest to the
scientific community, but it has not been approved
internationally.
• While some abnormalities were noted in the
experimental IHC test results, because the test was
not a validated procedure, and because the two
approved IHC tests came back negative, the results
were not considered to be of regulatory significance
and therefore were not reported beyond the
laboratory.
• A Western blot test conducted the week of
June 5, 2005, returned positive for BSE.
• An additional IHC confirmatory test conducted the
week of June 13, 2005, by USDA scientists utilizing
different antibodies from the November 2004 test,
confirmed this case as weakly positive for BSE.
• The Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge,
England, conducted a series of diagnostic tests
including an IHC, using different antibodies from
those used by USDA in November 2004, which
returned positive results for BSE.
http://www.usda.gov/documents/vs_bse_ihctestvar.pdf
since the finding of those last 2 h-BASE mad cows, usda et al decided to drastically cut testing. WHY ???
since then, not another mad cow has been confirmed in the USA.
as with the FDA BSE/TSE feed ban, as with the USDA BSE/TSE surveillance, both of which has been _proven_ terribly flawed, and then the Harvard BSE risk ash. that too proven to be terribly flawed by peer review ;
suppressed peer review of Harvard study October 31, 2002
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/oa/topics/BSE_Peer_Review.pdf
and then, to halt the enhanced surveillance of BSE/TSE in the USA, after being proven to be so terribly flawed, and after 2 cases of the highly virulent atypical BSE BASE, why do you suppose the cdc decided to destroy all the human CJD/TSE brain tissue that had been donated for research over a period of decades, of which it literally took an act by Senator Cornyn to stop the destruction of these brain tissues???
another one of those coincidences i suppose $$$
NIH may destroy human brain collection
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050323-053919-8481r.htm
Washington Times - Washington,DC,USA NIH may destroy human brain collection
By Steve Mitchell Medical Correspondent
Washington, DC, Mar. 24 (UPI) -- The National Institutes of Health may discard part or all of a rare collection that includes hundreds of human brain samples from patients that suffered from a disorder
similar to mad cow disease -- unless another researcher or institution takes them on, United Press International has learned...
snip...end
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.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0965.htm
CDC DR. PAUL BROWN TSE EXPERT COMMENTS 2006
The U.S. Department of Agriculture was quick to assure the public earlier
this week that the third case of mad cow disease did not pose a risk to
them, but what federal officials have not acknowledged is that this latest
case indicates the deadly disease has been circulating in U.S. herds for at
least a decade.
The second case, which was detected last year in a Texas cow and which USDA officials were reluctant to verify, was approximately 12 years old.
These two cases (the latest was detected in an Alabama cow) present a
picture of the disease having been here for 10 years or so, since it is
thought that cows usually contract the disease from contaminated feed they consume as calves. The concern is that humans can contract a fatal,
incurable, brain-wasting illness from consuming beef products contaminated with the mad cow pathogen.
"The fact the Texas cow showed up fairly clearly implied the existence of
other undetected cases," Dr. Paul Brown, former medical director of the
National Institutes of Health's Laboratory for Central Nervous System
Studies and an expert on mad cow-like diseases, told United Press
International. "The question was, 'How many?' and we still can't answer
that."
Brown, who is preparing a scientific paper based on the latest two mad cow cases to estimate the maximum number of infected cows that occurred in the United States, said he has "absolutely no confidence in USDA tests before one year ago" because of the agency's reluctance to retest the Texas cow
that initially tested positive.
USDA officials finally retested the cow and confirmed it was infected seven
months later, but only at the insistence of the agency's inspector general.
"Everything they did on the Texas cow makes everything USDA did before 2005
suspect," Brown said. ...snip...end
http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20060315-055557-1284r
CDC - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt ...
Dr. Paul Brown is Senior Research Scientist in the Laboratory of Central
Nervous System ... Address for correspondence: Paul Brown, Building 36, Room
4A-05, ...
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no1/brown.htm
PAUL BROWN COMMENT TO ME ON THIS ISSUE
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:10 AM
"Actually, Terry, I have been critical of the USDA handling of the mad cow issue for some years, and with Linda Detwiler and others sent lengthy detailed critiques and recommendations to both the USDA and the Canadian Food Agency."
http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0703&L=sanet-mg&T=0&P=8125
APHIS notes that for the current surveillance program, it had established regional goals and APHIS was not trying to meet particular sampling levels in particular States. However, we believe that it would be advantageous for APHIS to monitor collection data and increase outreach when large geographical areas such as the above States do not provide samples in proportion to the numbers and types of cattle in the population.
We also disagree with APHIS/FSIS' contention that because they have tested over 375,000 of their 446,000 estimate of high risk cattle, few in the high-risk population are being missed, including those that might be pre-screened before entering a slaughter facility's property. In our prior audit, we reported that APHIS underestimated the high-risk population; we found that this estimate should have been closer to 1 million animals (see Finding 1). We recognize that BSE samples are provided on a voluntary basis; however, APHIS should consider industry practice in any further maintenance surveillance effort. Animals unsuitable for slaughter exhibiting symptoms not inconsistent with BSE should be sampled and their clinical signs recorded. However, this cited industry practice results in rejected animals not being made available to either APHIS or FSIS veterinarians for their observation and identification of clinical signs exhibited ante mortem. Although these animals may be sampled later at other collection sites, the animals are provided post mortem without information as to relevant clinical signs exhibited ante mortem. For these reasons, we believe APHIS needs to
USDA/OIG-A/50601-10-KC Page 27
observe these animals ante mortem when possible to assure the animals from the target population are ultimately sampled and the clinical signs evaluated.
snip...
http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/50601-10-KC.pdf
WE KNOW the feed ban on paper is better in Canada than the USA.
WE KNOW the feed ban in the USA is NOTHING but paper.
WE KNOW that tons and tons of most likely tainted BSE/TSE FEED product is still in commerce in the USA in 2008, still being fed out to cattle and other livestock.
i could go on, but i think most here get the bigger picture $$$
SO, what part of cover-up do you not understand sandhuskey?
you r-calf boys and girls should go stand in front of a mirror and take a good look at yourself. by continuing to point fingers at Canada, but yet ignoring your own mad cows in your own backyard, simply to profit, you are adding to the continued spreading of the TSE agent in all of north America, and abroad, and in doing so, you will continue to expose countless numbers of humans and animals to the TSE agent. ...TSS
:wink: