The cow that would not go away

[Mad Max]

As reported by NCBA yesterday evening:

This evening at 9:00 p.m. eastern time, USDA held a media briefing on BSE. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns reminded participants that during the course of the enhanced BSE surveillance program to date, three BSE rapid tests resulted in an inconclusive result. Each of these tests was followed by a confirmatory immunohistochemistry (IHC) test; each IHC was negative. Recently, during an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit of the BSE surveillance program, the OIG determined that each of these samples should also be tested using another commonly used test, called Western Blot. While two of these initial inconclusives again confirmed negative using the Western Blot test, one of the retested samples was a reactor, or positive, when the Western Blot was performed.

How is this possible are the samples from more than one animal ?



Since this single sample has conflicting results, the sample will be forwarded to the World Reference Laboratory in Weybridge, England for final confirmation. USDA expects to have protocols for that confirmation developed early next week, but did not comment on when it expects to receive final results from Weybridge.

The sample in question was from an inconclusive announced in November, 2004. The animal did not enter the food or feed chain. USDA has said the animal in question was an older animal and a beef breed. The animal was non-ambulatory when presented for rendering and was condemned and incinerated.


poor timing or what

 

[PORKER]

HERE is a link where the SEC of AG is put on the spot about The TESTs we use. http://www.agweb.com/get_article.asp?pageid=118448

 

[rkaiser]

Or Reader (the second) Like I said months ago. USDA is run by the packers. Packers, especially every packer except Cargil and Tyson, are pressuring the USDA and the government to open the Canadian border. We all know that Cargil and Tyson have been profitting profusely in the Canadian (Salmon stream) market almost two years. Cargil and Tyson know the hayday will come to an end soon, and have decided that enough is enough.

Time to bury Rcalf (by the way, where are our "AMERICA is free of disease, Canada is lepered" cousins) Rcalf is making too much noise, and Canadians are yapping too much about testing lately. Time to stop things until another excuse to rape producers comes along.

The test will be positive, Rcalf will have no case, border will open, and testing will be scaleed back. Too predictable. Take a look at the timeing of every event folks. No science, and hardly even any politics, ALL MONEY.

 

[Maple Leaf Angus]

I agree with your summary Randy. All r-calf has managed to do with their tactics is strengthen the packers positions in both countries. Tip your hats to them, ladies and gentlemen. :x

 

[whiteface]

Tip my hat to you, Randy. That's exactly what's happening here and nice to have straight forward people just come right out and say it. Have a good day all and good luck, this won't be a fun ride for any of us but in the end we'll all test and we'll all export and be better off haveing survived this.

 

[Maple Leaf Angus]

. . .and be better off haveing survived this.

True enough for those of us who do survive. I'm sick of losing buckets of equity that I worked 30 years to aquire.


Maybe you wonder why I'm bitter?

 

[PORKER]

The senior Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, urged the USDA to implement stronger safeguards to protect consumers and cattle from mad cow disease.

"The possibility of a second case of mad cow in America raises concerns over the integrity of our cattle," she said in a statement.

Washington has informed all of its agriculture attaches overseas about the suspect animal. "Certainly an important part of what we do over the next few days will be to keep all of our trading partners informed of our progress," Loyd said.

 

[Mad Max]

Mad Max - . One -- a November 2004 downer which Reuters had reported as being from Texas and which USDA appears to have confirmed as the Nov Texas cow -- turned out "weakly postive." .

Is that something like being weakly pregnant?

 

[PORKER]

After we receive additional test results on this animal, we will determine what further steps need to be taken, and what changes, if any, are warranted in our surveillance program," he said. THEY WERE FORCED by the INSPECTOR GENERAL to USE a TEST that WORKS ,The WESTERN BLOT.......The immunohistochemistry (IHC) test SHOULD be SCRAPED MONDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only way to SAVE FACE for USDA!!!!!!

 

[Mad Max]

After we receive additional test results on this animal, we will determine what further steps need to be taken, and what changes, if any, are warranted in our surveillance program," he said. THEY WERE FORCED by the INSPECTOR GENERAL to USE a TEST that WORKS ,The WESTERN BLOT.......The immunohistochemistry (IHC) test SHOULD be SCRAPED MONDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only way to SAVE FACE for USDA!!!!!!

Bad bad news.U.S.D.A will be considered to be a square one as far as testing then.

 

[Murgen]

Do you think they are still thinking of dropping the number tested to 40,000?

 

[Murgen]

I have read that this cow was born after the feed ban, which will also bring into question the ban itself. If this is the case, then what does being a mirror image of the Canadian situation get the USDA? Huh, to think we in Canada were just about to test everything for Japan!

 

[Jeannie]

After we receive additional test results on this animal, we will determine what further steps need to be taken, and what changes, if any, are warranted in our surveillance program," he said. THEY WERE FORCED by the INSPECTOR GENERAL to USE a TEST that WORKS ,The WESTERN BLOT.......The immunohistochemistry (IHC) test SHOULD be SCRAPED MONDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only way to SAVE FACE for USDA!!!!!!

Now, take that one step further and consider the 37,000 animals that have already been tested usiing the IHC that isn't exactly reliable. Is the picture beginning to come in?

 

[Jeannie]

Tip my hat to you, Randy. That's exactly what's happening here and nice to have straight forward people just come right out and say it. Have a good day all and good luck, this won't be a fun ride for any of us but in the end we'll all test and we'll all export and be better off haveing survived this.

That's assuming we do survive it. I'm not so sure. There are far too many unknowns. How do you know that madam city consumer, who doesn't have a flipping clue about agriculture, or the beef industry, let alone BSE - isn't going to simply opt to switch to chicken, pork, or fish? Especially when it becomes public knowledge that the USDA has admitted that it wasn't testing to insure the safety of the food supply. If this cow comes back positive, I think s&*^ is going to hit the fan, in a major way! The USDA has already strained their credibility to the nth degree. If this cow comes back positive and the public learns that she was destroyed last November, but the definitive test wasn't done til June the USDA's credibility will be completely destroyed. Someone, anyone please tell me I'm wrong.

 

[whiteface]

Can't tell you that Jeannie. I think that you are absolutly right about consumer confidence going in the toilet (off the 13th floor! LOL!) but still in the end because of this I believe we will all get to test (I expect SH to blast me for wanting to test!) and win back the confidence of all consumers including Japan because we elected such oily covering up morons for leaders. Wish you all good luck in the announcement in the comeing days and thanks for reading from Canada!

 

[Mike]

Along the same note:
I was reading yesterday that a few Drs. are increasingly uneasy about the possibility of "Missed-diagnoses" in human tests because of testing methods. Their main concern was the labs inexperienced personnel and questioned detecting CJD using IHC (because the interpretation is subjective)and.......... that better/newer testing methods should be used. Plus the fact that some labs take as much as 6 months for a test. Many samples have even been lost during this time frame.

 

[Kathy]

vCJD has similar glycosylation patterns as BSE, in some instances, however this does not mean that BSE is causal of vCJD.

The real scientists that actually want to find the truth, not just find more grant money, have not, and will not, say that BSE is proven to cause anything in people.

Now, you (Reader) make the comment that "CJD is the human form of BSE". What in blazes are you doing?

Starting another factoid! An unproven statement that constant repetition of in the media, et al. will soon be spoken of as fact! Once again scare mongering. Sorry, but if the shoe fits...

There are many more likely reasons for the human neurological diseases associated, and/or not associated, with prions and amyloids.

If you don't have the evidence to show causality, you should refrain from assuming and making bold statements such as this. We all know what happens when you ass-u-me things.

 

[Kathy]

It will be much worse if there are ever any cases of human CJD in Canada or the U.S. On that note:

David Shuster MSNBC said in his blog that was posted here that the
Government is looking into an increase in cases. He writes:

"Did I mention that American scientists are tracking a mysterious spike
in the U.S. of the human form of BSE, known as Creutzfeldt Jakob disease?"

Your words just before David Shuster's quote, are to be read how?

Are you so uninformed that you do not know that there are cases of CJD in Canada?

Here we go with the promulgation of information that implies without clarification that CJD is the human form of madcow.

If you do not believe this to be true (BSE causes CJD) please state so.

If you are uncertain, state so. Don't let other people speak for you.

All researcher(s) want grants that's the name of the game in academia and research institutions

Agree with you totally here.

This is why the term infectious has perniciously hung around in the prion science field, not because its true; but, because if scientists don't use this terminology they don't get funding.

I am not trying to be argumentative, just that positions must be clear!!

If you want to post what other people think, you should state whether you agree, disagree or are considering this information to make your decision. The media is full of this kind of crap. And, because of this junk journalism, the cattle, sheep and elk industries have been dessimated.

Scientists know the rules of this game all to well. Speak out against the infection theory and your pushed out of the loops, and cut-off of the private and government funding for research.

This game needs to have the rules changed. This is why government funding is required to investigate the unpopular ideas, like maybe something in our environment is polluting our bodies, (cows and people alike).

Maybe this disease has been created by the stupidity of scientists and governments who lacked foresight to see that some of their past and present experiments, would / have / and continue to have a major fallout that was unexpected, and was more dangerous than originally thought.

We should be honest with ourselves here, and refer to the "unidentified?" cause of these diseases as a toxin. Drop this infectious crap and start looking at the finer aspects of toxicity to the cells, the whole cell and the whole protein.

 

[mrj]

Thank you, Kathy! Do you have time/expertise to go a little more into the difference between CJD and v or is it nvCJD?

I fear my understanding of it may not be clear enough, and due to a tragic accident over the weekend which took the life of a friend, am involved in other things as well as some family needs, so won't have much time on the site till next week.

Thanks, if you can do it. Looks like too many people do not know there is a difference. Anyway, too little is really clearly known about the TSE's in any case.

MRJ