Mad Cow Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Mad Cow Blog

OK, everyone from your mother to your cardiologist says you should be eating more fish. The American Heart Association recommends eating at least two servings of fish per week.

But if you do not live on the coast or some faraway island, getting fresh fish that only a short time earlier was swimming freely sea is not easy.   Chances are that Salmon or Halibut you buy in Des Moines or Atlanta in the winter is “farmed fish,” raised in a pen and just maybe fed prions from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Farmed fish could be a source of transmission of BSE to humans, risking variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human form of Mad Cow Disease.

This is the possibility is raised in the June issue of the prestigious Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. The authors, Dr. Robert P. Friedland, Dr. Robert B. Petersen, and Dr. Richard Rubenstein hail, respectively, from the medical schools at Louisville, Case Western, and the State University of New York.

“We are concerned that consumption of farmed fish may provide a means of transmission of infectious prions from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans, causing variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, “ the doctors write.

“We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited,” Friedland said. “Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows,” he added.

Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is an untreatable, universally fatal disease that can be contracted by eating parts of an animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease).

An outbreak in England attributed to infected beef prompted most countries to outlaw feeding rendered cow material to other cattle because the disease is so easily spread within the same species. 
 
The risk of transmission of BSE to humans who eat farmed fish would appear to be low because of perceived barriers between species. But, according to the authors, it is possible for a disease to be spread by eating a carrier that is not infected itself. It’s also possible that eating diseased cow parts could cause fish to experience a pathological change that allows the infection to be passed between the two species.

“The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe.  The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public,” Friedland said.

Deaths from Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in the United Kingdom attributed to eating infected beef total 163.    Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been identified in nine Canadian and three U.S. cattle.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Surely the most costly cow ever to trod upon American soil was the one found in Washington State six years ago. The discovery that it had Mad Cow disease led to U.S. beef being banned around the world, costing billions upon billions of dollars.

One-by-one, country-by-country, American Beef has fought its way back. Now it is hoping Taiwan does not turn out to be as volatile as was South Korea.

Harry Tseng, director general of the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of North American Affairs, is optimistic about fully opening his country’s market to U.S. beef before 2009 ends.

Stephen M. Young, the top U.S. envoy to Taiwan, has repeatedly urged Taiwan government to make a science-based decision on fully opening its market to U.S. beef.

All of Taiwan's scientific review and technical work indicates that U.S. beef does not pose a threat of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, Young tells the Taiwan News.

U.S. de-boned beef from cattle under age 30 months was allowed back into Taiwan in 2005, but local government continued the broader ban after a second Mad Cow was found in the U.S.

In South Korea, the Seoul Central Prosecutor's Office indicted four producers and a script writer of the "PD's Notepad," an investigative television program aired on MBC for airing a story on the Mad Cow threat from U.S. beef.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

We do not wish to pick on anyone.

Over the transom this morning came the work of the “Portland Nutrition Examiner,” Kendall Scott.  Writing under a headline---Do you know where your meat and animal products come from?—she wrote:

“According to former cattle rancher, Howard Lyman, many cattle, animals that were never meant to eat meat, end up being fed their own kind, and this often results in Mad Cow Disease. This food-borne illness can then be passed on to humans eating meat from those animals.”

We are use words like “many” and “often.”   There are many trees in the forest.  People often drive through yellow lights.  Those work.   “Many” and “often”, however, are not words to be used when writing about Mad Cow Disease. 

We write this blog knowing that Mad Cow Disease is rare and that research into all the Prion diseases is fascinating and demands our attention.

We cannot help but point out that several sites on the web that appear dedicated to Mad Cow hysteria haven’t had any new posts in months or  years, including Mr. Lyman’s.  As indicated below, only three cows infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease have been located in U.S. herds. (See blue boxes below)  Since this chart was published, a 16th infected animal was found in an animal in Canada.   None of these animals entered the human food chain, nor were they fed to other beasts.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link