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  #107  
Old January 5th 04, 06:09 AM
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Hagar wrote:
humans, too.
And they're probably right - I'm not aware of any human cases in
either the USA or Canada.

Hope that makes the meat industry feel better as they absorb
that $17 billion loss.


Yeah. Honestly I think Mad Cow's biggest impact on the US is not going to
be health wise but economy wise. There has been (including the England
epidemic which constitutes most of the cases) around 150 (I think the
exact number was 153 but I'm not sure, could be 163) cases ever of the
syndrom that is caused by injesting the prion. There is the same syndrom
that is caused by genetics or even just random occurance. It is also very
rare.

Of course, with the way Mad Cow is spread, one could point out it would be
very easy to get rid of it and have pretty much 100% safety from it. Feed
cows what htey were meant to be fed, herbivore food. From what is
described of the disease, I'm not sure if it would be totally 100% (could
be that it can randomly occur when a protien turns into a prion), but it
would be a lot closer than any other measures we put into place. Of course
beef would become more expensive (even fast food hamburgers).

But, I think really what needs to be addressed is other countries fear of
our beef now. To be fair, ti sounds hypocritical to say that we were not
allowing beef from countries with incidences into our country and then
to try to get other countries to take our beef. But, at least in Japan's
case it's not as if Japan hadn't already had an incident of it (they had
two cows found to have it). When we weren't allowing beef in we never had
a case of it. I can understand not wanting to risk getting it when you've
never had it. I think though Japanese culture probably is more picky about
what goes in their meal (it seems meal and presentation is very important.
Not that I claim to know much about Japanese culture, it's just the
impression I get).

Also to address the idea that other countries test every
single cattle... other countries have a lot smaller herd of cattle than we
do (America eats a lot more beef and has a lot more land to grow that beef
than most other countries where beef is more of a luxury). I would venture
to say it is impractical to ask every single cow get tested before
slaughtered and the meat eaten for this country, especially when you
consider the risk which really isn't that big. I think maybe it would be
fair for Japan to ask that any cattle/beef we import there get tested.

Even the epidemic in England wasn't that many. More kids go into the
hospital for cancer everyday than total amount of people who have gotten
diagnosed with Varient Jacob's xxx syndrom (I cna't spell that one
word, the varient is the jacob's xxx syndrom that is caused by eating a
mad cow). I'm not sure from what I've read that it is gaurenteed you
will develop the disease if you ingest the prion. As some one has pointed
out they would do the public's health a lot better favor by focusing on
safe meat handling to prevent salmanella and that kind of stuff.

It probably affected England's culture and how they viewed beef more than
their health. It is the perfect disease for the media. It is 100% fatal,
it has a nice horrid description (how it affects the brain, the symptoms),
and it's odd (specially the whole idea of a prion).

Alice

--
The root cause of problems is simple overpopulation. People just aren't
worth very much any more, and they know it. Makes 'em testy. ...Bev
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