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

Consumer groups concerned about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), sometimes referred to as "mad cow disease," are asking the FDA to ban the presence of poultry feces in cattle feed, according to the LA Times.

According to the story, advocates say that the feed in question, which includes "feces, spilled chicken feed, feathers and poultry farm detritus" -- increases the risk of cows becoming infected with BSE.

Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union says that the chicken feed and the feces contain tissue from ruminants -- cows and sheep, among other mammals. BSE can be transmitted to cattle through the consumption of ruminant remains. According to the article, the contamination need not be widespread to cause a problem.  "It takes a very small quantity of ruminant protein, even just 1 milligram, to cause an infection," said Steve Roach, public health program director with Food Animal Concerns Trust, a Chicago-based animal welfare group that is part of the coalition. Cattle industry representatives disagree with the need for a ban:

The National Cattlemen's Beef Assn., the beef industry's main trade group, said the ban was not needed and that several FDA reviews had determined that the chance of cattle becoming infected with mad cow disease from eating poultry litter was remote.

"Science does not justify the ban, and the FDA has looked at this now many times," said Elizabeth Parker, chief veterinarian for the trade group.

Interestingly, at least some of those in the business of selling beef directly to consumers share the consumer groups' concerns:

The practice also makes McDonald's, one of the nation's biggest beef purchasers, nervous. "We do not condone the feeding of poultry litter to cattle," it said in a statement.

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The Rapid City Journal reports that the CEO of a cattle rancher association aimed public criticisms at the USDA's "mad cow" policy.  Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF, made his remarks at the annual Stockgrowers Association meeting in Rapid City.   Among Bullard's criticisms:

• The USDA' s policy with respect to Canadian Cattle.   Bullard complained that the "USDA still has not overturned its rule allowing all Canadian cattle and beef to come into the U.S., despite the discovery of 17 cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in that country's cattle."
• International buyers, including Japan, continue to limit U.S. beef exports due to concerns over "mad cow"  or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
• USDA continues to allow mingling of Mexican and U.S. cattle as well, raising concerns of bovine tuberculosis, a threat to the health of U.S. cattle herds.

Moving beyond the topic of BSE, Bullard also criticized sanitary conditions at large slaughterhouses:  "We see in the beef industry an increase in e-coli and other foodborne illnesses that originate not from the meat, but from the intestine.  These are enteric bacteria that can only contaminate meat if the meat is contaminated with fecal material. It's a sanitary issue."

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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.

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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.

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The family of the United Kingdom's Andrew 'Rew' Hawker are confident that when test results are in, they will show he died from variant CJD---linked to eating BSE infected meat.

Hawker died at at King's Mill Hospital on 7th May after being struck down by pneumonia while he fought the degenerative neurological disorder.

The 22-year old Bilsthorpe man has died from a suspected case of the incurable Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) — better known as 'mad cow' disease.  Health experts have told his family Andrew suffered from the more common sporadic form of CJD which usually affects 45-75 year olds.

Hawker  was diagnosed with the brain disease in October last year and his brave fight against it touched the hearts of his devastated friends and family.

For more on this tragic death, go here.

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We’re coming up on the 5th anniversary of the discovery of Mad Cow disease in the United States. It came here with an unfortunate little cow from Canada that found its way to Washington State.
It ended, for a long time, U.S beef exports. The cost to the U.S. economy? $6 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Somewhat less, according to Kansas State University.

Now U.S. beef is getting back in the overseas pipeline. Last May, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) cleared U.S. beef from animals of any age as a “controlled BSE risk” and therefore safe for export.

BSE, of course, is Bovine spongiform encephalopathy---science’s name for Mad Cow Disease. Other countries with controlled BSE risk include Brazil, Canada, Chile, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
If you are looking for countries with less BSE risk, you might want to look at beef from Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Singapore, and Uruguay. Those countries have “negligible” BSE risk, according to the OIE.

Russia, however, is looking to cut a deal for genuine U.S. beef. With its pockets filled with dollars from selling us oil at near $100 per barrel, Russia wants some pricey cuts of U.S. beef, according to a Dec. 3, 2007 report in the Wall Street Journal. (“From Mad Cow to Cash Cow).

WSJ reported that before it banned U.S. beef, Russians mostly consumed cheaper cuts, livers, hearts, and kidneys. Now, Russia in the market for more expensive beef cuts.

One thing is for certain, however. It will be a long time before U.S. beef makes up for the mistake it made when it brought that little cow over the Canadian border.

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South Korea and the United States agreed Friday to discuss bone-in beef and other import quarantine issues after a world animal health organization's general assembly slated for late May. The decision was reached in a two-day-long beef technical consultation meeting in Seoul. No exact date for the meeting has been set, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said.

The World Organization for Animal Health is to convene a meeting of its members in Paris on May 20-25. It is expected to give the United States a mad cow disease "controlled risk" classification that technically allows the country to export beef without limitations, reports Yonhap News.

Keep reading here.

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Short elements within a prion protein's sequence can cause it to activate and even cross the species barrier to spread neurodegenerative disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to humans

Prions, the maddening, infectious proteins, and the diseases they trigger, such as the fatal neurodegenerative disorder in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease—as well as its bovine counterpart, mad cow disease—have baffled scientists for decades. Although researchers know what they are (abnormally folded proteins) and the illnesses that they cause, how they form and multiply has remained elusive.

Keep reading here

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