madcowering

More meat issues: Study finds link between foie gras and rare disease

2007-06-19T10:45:00.001-05:00

A protein in foie gras can accelerate amyloidosis, a possibly deadly disease process, which occurs in TB and rheumatoid arthritis. The study found for the first time that amyloidosis, like mad cow, might be transmissible, although researchers also say that only certain people are high risks would be susceptible. "Perhaps people with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or other amyloid-associated diseases should avoid consuming foie gras and other foods that may be contaminated with fibrils."

On the menu for Bush and Japanese prime minister...

2007-04-27T14:44:00.000-05:00

Roasted duck, not beef at a state dinner, despite a request by the Montana senators to serve beef to make a statement about "unjustified trade barriers" concerning Japanese restrictions on imports of U.S. beef. "Petite roasted breast of duck, soft duck egg and crispy braised duck leg, to be exact." Full (short) story.

Mad Cow Lab Closing: Update

2007-02-27T16:27:00.000-05:00

The Daily Evergreen has more about the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory closing that we reported on last week:

The region’s only mad cow testing facility, a part of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at WSU, will no longer test for mad cow disease as a contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture comes to an end March 1.

The Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory was given a contract to test Northwest cows for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

The facility began testing in June 2004, several months after a cow in the Yakima Valley tested positive for BSE, the first such case in the United States.

It's disappointing that the USDA is taking this step, especially since the use of animal products in cow fodder is still allowed.

Mad Cow Test To Be Scaled Back (?!?!)

2007-02-23T16:51:00.000-05:00

The UPI is reporting that the main US BSE testing facility will close:

U.S. agriculture officials are planning to close the mad-cow testing lab at Washington State University in Pullman, despite increasing concerns.

The Seattle Times reports the facility -- one of three slated for closure -- will cease operations March 1. It opened three years ago after the nation's first case of the brain-wasting disease -- bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- was found.

I'm pretty much speechless. What the hell are they thinking?

2nd Portugese vCJD Case

2007-02-23T16:42:00.000-05:00

There's an item on the AP wire that Portuguese health officials have found what seems to be their second case of "human mad cow disease", also known as vCJD.

CattleNetwork has the low-down:

Laboratory tests indicated a young woman had contracted the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, the General Health Directorate said in a brief statement posted on its Web site.

Officials said the disease could be proved beyond doubt only after death.

That last bit really makes the story.

Meat Inspections: A Cut Back Masquerading As An Increase

2007-02-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

There's a story on CBSNews.com that's confusing the hell out of me.

The story starts out sounding pretty good:

Stepped-up inspections at some meat and poultry plants are set to begin in April, according to an Agriculture Department official overseeing the first overhaul of food safety inspections in a decade.

Not bad, right? Considering the large number of food-processing related stories over the past year it's nice to hear that the US government is doing something right. But then it gets murky:

Food safety critics weren't pleased. Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy for Consumer Federation of America, called the policy reckless and illegal. She said the new policy was the result of the White House's desire to reduce spending and "will almost surely result in more illnesses and more deaths from food poisoning."

What? Oh, right, see this is what they're talking about:

Plants with fewer risks and better food-handling records will be inspected less often.

So what's really going to happen is that the administration has figured out a way to cut back on regulation, while making it sound like they're doing more.

And that, my friend, is called burying the lede.

Canadian Cows And Their Wily Ways

2007-02-20T00:46:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like the inspection and documentation requirements that were supposed to keep our bodily fluids from getting contaminated by Canadian cow juice have broken down. All Canadian cows destined for the US are supposed to get ear tags for tracking and identification purposes and birth certificates showing that they're less than 2 and a half years old. From the Chicago Tribune:

In a memo dated March 7, 2006, representatives of one American cattle operation wrote, "52 head of the 60 came in NO EID. The papers have a mixture of EID & bar codes for official tags. We recorded the bar codes (although a couple came in with no tags at all) and gave them our EID tag." ... "We had a load come in with the wrong health papers all together," stated an e-mail dated April 6 to the state from a cattle firm. "It was never caught at the border." The correct health papers for that load of 66 cattle, the e-mail's author noted, were later obtained from officials at the Canadian border.

vCJD Transmission Study

2006-08-17T01:17:00.000-05:00

A recent study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface suggests that vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) might be spread by improperly sterilized surgical instruments. This has been suspected for a while, but this study shows that there's a correlation between the number of times a particular instrument is being used, the cleaning method, the type of instrument (some are more easily "infected"), and the scale of a local vCJD outbreak. Infection Control Today (which has the best website name ever) has more:

The authors begin by presenting data on the surgical procedures undertaken on vCJD patients prior to the onset of clinical symptoms which support the hypothesis that cases via this route are possible. They then apply a mathematical framework to assess the potential for self-sustaining epidemics via surgical procedures.

They conclude that further research is needed into how surgical instruments are used so as to reduce uncertainty and assess the potential risk of this transmission route.

Manitoban Mad Cow Not Made Into Burgers

2006-08-10T01:18:00.000-05:00

So it turns out that the Canadian cow that was found to have BSE last month never entered the food supply. Straight from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's own site:

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has concluded its epidemiological investigation of the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) confirmed on July 3, 2006 in a cow from Manitoba. No part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed chains.

An interesting thing I didn't realize: the cow was 16 years old.

Getting a Shipment, Checking it Twice

2006-08-09T01:19:00.000-05:00

The Japanese Ministry of Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries will be definitely making a list if it turns out anyone's been naughty with their beef shipments. The first shipment of beef since that box of spines was found back in January is being shipped over to the Japanese arm of Costco (they have Costco's in Japan?). As always, Bloomberg has the scoop

The first shipment since the ban was ended on July 28 arrived yesterday at Narita International Airport, east of Tokyo, the farm ministry's statement said.

Japanese inspectors checked U.S. meatpackers and approved 34 as exporters to Japan after the U.S. pressed Japan to re-open its market.

Mad Cow Testing To Be Reduced

2006-08-04T01:20:00.000-05:00

Apparently the poor and spotty BSE testing in the US has produced far fewer cases than everyone feared, so the Agriculture Department has decided to just cut back on testing even further. This is interesting, especially since the USDA doesn't let farms and farmers perform testing on their own. The St. Pete Times has more

The current testing level - 1,000 each day - reflects the heightened concern that followed the discovery in December 2003 of mad cow disease in the United States.

...

"It's time that our surveillance efforts reflect what we now know is a very, very low level of BSE in the United States," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said. "There is no significant BSE problem in the United States, and after all of this surveillance, I am able to say there never was."

...And that makes seven.

2006-07-20T01:20:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like Canada's slow march of BSE-laden cows hasn't come to an end. Last week a brand new case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was diagnosed in a four-year old dairy cow who was put down on a farm rather than in a slaughter house. The important point here is that it was born five years after a feed ban was put into effect in Canada in 1997. If that's the case, where did she get BSE? Where did the infected feed come from? Is there more out there? The CBC talks about it:

Samples of the dead cow were sent to the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg for testing.

Harry Haney, president of the Independent Breeders Service near Airdrie, said finding another Canadian cow with BSE wasn't unexpected.

"Other countries that have had cases of BSE have also seen this kind of a situation, where in fact the cow, born after the feed ban was put in place, has come up with the disease," he said Thursday.

"Again, we'd rather it didn't happen, but in terms of the science and the risks to human health, it's not an issue."

Study Predicts More Human Mad Cow Deaths

2006-06-27T01:21:00.000-05:00

A study published on June 23, 2006 in The Lancet suggest that many more humans will eventually die of mad cow disease. They studied the highland cannibalistic tribes of New Guinea that were decimated by prion disease (which they called kuru) and found that the disease could incubate for 50 years in people with particular genetic make-ups. From the New York Times article: "The new Lancet study relied on teams of local people who visited mountain villages for years, interviewing and asking for blood samples from anyone with symptoms. The 11 they found were all born between 1933 and 1949, and cannibalism died out by 1960. The lead author, Dr. John Collinge of University College, London, concluded that kuru could incubate as long as 56 years before killing. It has been known for years that people with a certain genetic marker die soonest of prion diseases. Nine of the 11 Fore did not have it."

Officials unable to track origin of Alabama mad cow case

2006-05-06T01:22:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Tribune reported on May 4, 2006 that the government has given up trying to track the origin of an Alabama cow infected with mad cow disease. The trail went cold after seven weeks of investigation of more than three dozen farms, the Agriculture Department said in a report issued late Tuesday. The cow was a "downer," meaning she couldn't walk, when an Alabama veterinarian examined her in late February. The vet killed the cow and removed brain samples for testing, and the cow became the nation's third case of mad cow disease. Meanwhile, in a separate case, the U.S. is tracing 15 cattle imported from Canada that ate the same feed as an infected cow discovered last month in British Columbia. So far, the government has found one cow and intends to kill and test it, the Agriculture Department said.

Canada - Still More Mad Cows?

2006-04-18T01:23:00.000-05:00

From our frozen neighbors to the north comes a report that they've found their fifth mad cow.

The Canadian Food and Inspection Agency confirmed that a six-year-old dairy cow in Fraser Valley, British Columbia, had BSE (Mad Cow Disease). Canadian authorities are say this finding will probably not lead to a ban on imports of beef from the USA. The USA is Canada's largest export market for beef.

Mike Johanns, US Department of Agriculture, said "Information gathered through this investigation will help us to determine what, if any, impact this should have on our beef and live cattle trade with Canada. Based on the information currently available, I do not anticipate a change in the status of our trade."

New Mad Cow Case - Alabama

2006-03-14T02:24:00.000-05:00

The third case of mad cow disease in the US was confirmed today. It was a beef cow that was more than 10 years old and at this time it's not known where the cow came from. ABCNews.com has more information:

A routine test last week had indicated the presence of the disease. Results were confirmed by more detailed testing at a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Clifford said.

U.S. investigators have found two previous cases of mad cow disease. The first was in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state. The second was last June in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.

Luckily, we have the USDA claiming that beef sales won't be hurt. <sarcasm>Thank goodness for that.</sarcasm>

"I do not think it will have a negative impact on trade with other countries," Johanns told reporters during a visit to Poland.

Feed Ban - This Time For Real

2006-02-19T02:26:00.000-05:00

From the same people who brought you the original ruminant feed ban that decreed that cows shouldn't eat dead cows, comes a tightening of those rules. So remember when a BSE-infected cow was discovered in the US? And the FDA put into effect a ruminant feed ban that decreed that cows shouldn't eat dead cows? Well that apparently didn't work so well, since they (the FDA) has decided that those rules should be tightened. They're finally addressing a massive loophole that allowed feed producers to put dead cows in chicken feed, and then to put dead chickens that had eaten that feed into cow feed. It made the prions jump an extra step between generations, but the prions seem to be up to that. Bloomberg has more:

The revisions will be the first tightening of the rules since the FDA barred feeding cattle parts to cattle in 1997. The FDA has considered and then abandoned stronger measures for preventing the brain-wasting disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, said Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House panel that oversees the FDA budget.

``We have been operating under rules from 1997, even though our understanding of how BSE is spread has increased dramatically since then,'' DeLauro, of Connecticut, told Acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach at a subcommittee meeting today on the agency's budget.

Newly Mad Cow in Canada

2006-01-25T02:26:00.000-05:00

Government officials in Canada have confirmed a fourth case of mad cow disease on Monday. A six-year-old Holstein-Hereford dairy cow has the unfortunate distinction of being the latest case of BSE to hit Canada. This comes hot on the heels of Japan's decision to halt all beef shipments form the US. It's thought that contamintated feed, left over from before Canada banned inclusion of ruminant protein from cow chow, is the culprit. Reuters has more:

Canada confirmed its fourth home-grown case of the brain-wasting disease just as the financial strain on its cattle industry from previous mad-cow-related trade bans had started to ease.

Government and industry officials played down odds that the case will prompt the United States to renew trade restrictions, but U.S. cattle prices initially rose on speculation that may happen.

The announcement also came as the U.S. beef industry tried to persuade Japan, a top export customer, to lift a new halt it slapped on U.S. shipments last week.

...Aaaand We're Outa There

2006-01-24T02:27:00.000-05:00

Yes, to no one's surprise, Japan has decided to halt further beef imports from the US. After thinking about it over the weekend, the Ministry of Agriculture decided that if they wanted beef spines they'd rather get them from home grown sources. And it's not like you can blame them. They asked for beef without spines and still, they got spines. I'd be pissed if I were them. CBS News has more information

Japan's top government spokesman will protest against the discovery of bone material in a shipment of U.S. beef when he meets soon with a U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, a news report said Saturday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe will lodge the protest with Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick on Monday, Kyodo News agency reported, citing Abe.

Zoellick was scheduled to arrive in Japan Saturday for talks on a range of political and economic issues.

Japan's discovery was a jarring setback for the U.S. meat industry and the Bush administration, both of which had been optimistic about the prospects of selling more beef in Asia despite lingering restrictions on U.S. products.

Spines Found

2006-01-21T02:27:00.000-05:00

If you've been reading thsi site as much as you should, then you know that Japan has started importing USian beef again. I'm not sure why, considering Kobe beef is some of most succulent flesh this side of baby seal cheeks, but who are we to criticize? So, anyway, Japan started importing good ol' American beef two months ago. It's gone fairly well, up until today, when but they put a temporary moratorium on future shipments since they found they found beef spines in three boxes of beef in a recent shipment.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a statement Friday morning that a thorough investigation was underway and that the plant that exported the tainted shipment would no longer be able to export beef to Japan.

"Our agreement with Japan is to export beef with no vertebral column and we have failed to meet the terms of that agreement," Johanns said in the statement.

Johanns also said he was dispatching USDA inspectors to Japan to review shipments and that unannounced inspections would take place at every U.S. plant approved for beef exports.

South Korea Needs Their Beef

2006-01-15T02:28:00.000-05:00

When the US reported the first case of BSE a couple of years ago most of the countries that import US beef decided to look elsewhere until some changes were made. South Korea was one, but they've now decided to open their doors to some US beef once again. The Chron.com reports:

South Korea agreed early Friday to resume shipments of U.S. beef, which had been prohibited since the December 2003 discovery of mad cow disease in the United States.

But a prohibition will remain on ribs and other bone-in beef, which keeps closed about 45 percent of the potential market. South Korea was worth a total of $815 million to U.S. producers in the year before the ban. The country once was the third-biggest customer of American beef behind Japan and Mexico.

Are Prions A Defense Against Cannibalism?

2006-01-10T02:35:00.000-05:00

An article in this week's Science throws doubt on a previous study that looked at whether modern humans retain a PRNP gene. It was thought that this genentic variation gave some protection against vCJD in cannibals.

n the first study, published in Science (25 April 2003, p. 640), a team led by John Collinge of University College London (UCL), looked at a human gene called PRNP which codes for prions (ScienceNOW, 10 April 2003). These misfolded proteins are thought to be responsible for several neurodegenerative diseases including Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) and kuru. Individuals with certain variations in this gene are more resistant to the diseases.

When the team looked at the chromosomes of more than 1000 people from populations around the world, they concluded that the prevalence of two of these variations was due to an evolutionary balancing act that had kept them in the gene pool for as long as 500,000 years. The researchers hypothesized that this "balancing selection" was due to widespread cannibalistic practices that had made early humans susceptible to prion diseases.

T-Bones for Euroland

2006-01-04T02:35:00.000-05:00

For the last four years it's been impossible to buy a T-Bone steak anywhere in the Eurozone. As a precaution against prion transmission from BSE-infected cows to humans there has been a ban on all cuts of beef that contain pieces of backbones from animals more than 12 months old. But today that's all changed.

EU veterinary experts agreed in Brussels last October to raise that limit to 24 months, following advice from the European Food Safety Authority.

A continuing fall in the number of positive BSE cases as well as an increase in the average age of infected animals and new scientific data led to the conclusion that it would be safe to ease measures in relation to the removal of certain specified risk material in animals.

Japan ends two-year ban on US beef

2005-12-13T02:36:00.000-05:00

TOKYO, Dec. 12, 2005 -- Japan gave the final go-ahead Monday to resume imports of some US beef after a two-year ban, averting a potential trade war between the close political allies. But it remains to be seen if the decision will bring closure to the drawn-out saga, with only a small amount of US beef set to return to the shelves in what used to be the US industry's biggest overseas market. "It was approved to restart the imports," senior vice agriculture minister Mitsuhiro Miyakoshi told reporters after a ministry meeting. He said Japan would send inspectors to North America to ensure compliance with Japanese safety guidelines -- that the slaughtered cattle be no more than 20 months old and risky parts of their bodies removed. The United States has sought to relax the rules by lowering the age of slaughtered cattle to 30 months old -- a proposal rejected by Japan. "We hear through the media that the US may want to export beef 30 months or younger but the US side has accepted the conditions presented by Japan," Miyakoshi said. Japan barred imports of US beef in December 2003 after cases of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), were discovered in cattle in the country. It was a devastating blow to the US farming industry as Japan was the number one overseas market for its beef, buying 1.7 billion dollars worth in 2002. Japan had imposed a similar ban on Canadian beef in May 2003. The row with Washington turned bitter in October 2004 when Japan promised to exempt US cows aged 20 months or younger from screening if high-risk parts were removed. Washington interpreted the agreement as a breakthrough but Tokyo said it needed more time to verify how to test the age of the cattle. The United States then applied intense pressure on Japan to resume beef imports, with the issue consistently raised in visits by US envoys to Washington's closest Asian ally. US farm-state senators had even pressed for sanctions worth 3.1 billion dollars unless Tokyo opened up again by the year-end. It is still unclear, however, if the lifting of the ban will appease disgruntled US farmers and politicians, with Japan expected only to import a fraction of the beef it once took in. Polls show that many Japanese are unlikely to start eating North American beef again any time soon. A survey published by Kyodo News last week showed 75.2 percent of Japanese surveyed would be unwilling to eat the beef. US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Friday there was nothing to fear despite the discouraging poll figures. "I can assure the Japanese consumer that beyond a shadow of a doubt, US beef is safe," he said. "We will be ready to comply with the regulations and rules that we have worked through with Japan on this issue. I've a smile on my face." Johanns also said that Washington was preparing to lift a ban on Japanese beef to coincide with the imminent resumption of US beef exports to Japan. The United States in 2001 banned Japanese beef imports -- mostly the niche market of luxury Kobe beef -- after Japan became the only Asian country to report mad-cow disease in a herd. Japan exported 800,000 dollars worth of beef to the United States in 2000. Copyright 2005 Agence France Presse

Have vCJD Deaths Peaked?

2005-11-08T02:37:00.000-05:00

Well, the Daily Mail is reporting that some researchers think they have.

An examination of vCJD cases and deaths during the period January 1994 to December 2004 provided "statistically significant evidence that a peak in the incidence of vCJD has been passed".

However some experts have warned that there may be a surge in victim numbers at some later date.

People with different genetic profiles may experience different vCJD incubation periods, which could run into decades.

Many individuals infected with vCJD by eating contaminated meat in the 1980s may yet be due to develop symptoms, it is suggested. It is also possible they may die from other causes before the disease shows itself.