Good news lower beef prices!

“WASHINGTON -- A single Holstein on a Washington state farm has tested positive for mad cow disease, marking the first suspected appearance of the brain-wasting disease in the United States, the Bush administration announced Tuesday as it assured Americans their food is safe.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the slaughtered cow was screened earlier this month and any diseased parts were removed before they could enter the food supply and infect humans. Fear of the disease has brought economic ruin on beef industries in Europe and Canada.

"We remain confident in the safety of our food supply," Veneman told a hastily convened news conference. The farm near Yakima, Wash., where the cow originated, has been quarantined as officials trace how the animal contracted the disease and where its meat went.

"Even though the risk to human health is minimal, we will take all appropriate actions out of an abundance of caution," she said.

Mad cow disease, known also as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, eats holes in the brains of cattle. It sprang up in Britain in 1986 and spread through countries in Europe and Asia, prompting massive destruction of herds and decimating the European beef industry.
A form of mad cow disease can be contracted by humans if they eat infected beef or nerve tissue, and possibly through blood transfusions. The human form of mad cow disease so far has killed 143 people in Britain and 10 elsewhere, none in the United States. Blood donors possibly at risk for the disease are banned from giving.

Wary of the potential economic impact on their American market, beef producers quickly sought Tuesday to reassure consumers that infected meat wouldn't reach their tables. "There is no risk to consumers based upon the product that came from this animal," said Terry Stokes, chief executive of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Veneman also assured Americans the screening system worked, and no foul play was suspected. "This incident is not terrorist-related," she said. "I cannot stress this point strongly enough."

President Bush was briefed a few times on the development Tuesday and was confident Veneman's department handling the matter properly, the White House said.

With an election year approaching, the news alarmed some in Congress. Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., a member of the House Agriculture Committee, said he expected Congress to hold "extensive oversight" hearings when lawmakers return to Washington in late January.

Lawmakers are keenly aware that a case of mad cow disease in Canada last May -- which officials described as a single, isolated incident -- still had devastating economic consequences.

"If it's anything like what happened in Canada, it will be bad. The problem won't be that people will stop eating meat in the United States; the problem is the exports will be shut down like we did with Canada," said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.
Veneman said the Holstein, which could not move on its own, was found at a farm in Mabton, Wash., about 40 miles southeast of Yakima, and tested preliminarily positive for the brain-wasting illness on Dec. 9.
Samples from the cow have been sent to Britain for confirmation of the preliminary mad cow finding, Veneman said.
But Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said such cows shouldn't be in the food supply in the first place. The Senate passed such a ban earlier this year, but it failed to make it through the House.

"I blame it on greed, greed, greed," Ackerman said. "The greed of the industry, the greed of the lobbyists and the greed of the members of Congress."



U.S. beef remains "absolutely safe to eat," she said.






Yes, it's absolutely safe to eat, that's why we shut down imports of Canadian beef after one cow tested positive.

Japan and South Korea immediately stopped import shipments of US beef.

Lower prices at the market..if you dare to eat it.”

“q: why do they call it mad cow disease?





a: because pms was already taken




i sleigh me”

“You have to incinerate the beef at a high temp, to kill off he mad cow disease. I don't think i'll be eating beef anytime soon. Having been on a diet for this long, I dont even like the taste of chicken anymore, no matter what spices I use. Currently, I'm mainly eating fish and salmon. I think soon, i'll be a vegatarian. You get so much energy from that too.”

“Would you eat American beef?

Yes 45% 3811 votes

No 55% 4586 votes
Total: 8397 votes

Source: CNN Quickvote


(CNN) -- China has become the latest nation to ban imports of U.S. beef as the mad cow scare spreads to Asia.

On Thursday a Chinese official said Beijing has suspended the imports, joining Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.”

“This is scary stuff, and it won't help the economy any, either.”

“I've got some good 'ole USDA beef in the feezer right now. Maybe I should set it out to thaw for a few days.”

“Being a tarian ,I could care less.The water and land needed to feed those beasts could be put to beter use.Eat some fruit, not part of someones future boot.”

“Published on Saturday, December 27, 2003 by Reuters
US Mad Cow Link Questioned in Creutzfeldt-Jakob Cases
by Jed Seltzer and Elinor Mills Abreu

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO - Family and friends of American victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the fatal brain disorder sometimes linked to mad cow disease, on Friday questioned whether the wasting illness that killed their loved ones was actually due to eating contaminated U.S. beef.

After federal authorities said on Tuesday that a cow in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease, public health experts have been calling for a review of the U.S. Agriculture Department's screening procedures for cattle.

But some victim's families have gone further, saying that the human form of the disease may have already hit the United States and that the government has been lax in its testing possible links and enforcing safety standards.

"The most frustrating part of this disease is that there are no answers," said Chris Turnley, whose brother Peter Putnam, who grew up in Washington state, died of the disease last October at age 35. "They need to figure out the cause but also start figuring out treatments."

So far, none of the roughly 300 cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease diagnosed in the United States each year has been linked to U.S.-produced beef, said Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western University.

But Dr. Michael Greger, a doctor in Scarsdale, New York, and coordinator for Organic Consumers Association, said it would be wrong to take comfort from that statistic. The disease has a long incubation period and few dementia-related deaths in the United States are investigated.

"There have been no confirmed cases, but just as there weren't any confirmed cases of mad cow disease, it is a function of how hard one looks for it," Greger said.

The variant of the illness linked to mad cow disease was first reported in Britain, where about 150 people have died and where mad cow disease was first identified in 1986.

The disease is marked by sudden and escalating neurological and muscular symptoms, including confusion, depression, behavioral changes and impaired vision and coordination.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease occurs spontaneously at a rate of about one case per 1 million people. It is incurable and always fatal. A related illness, known as new variant CJD, has been linked in Europe to eating meat from cattle infected with mad cow disease.

'MYSTERY' ILLNESS

Patricia Ewanitz of Port Jefferson Station, New York, says she wonders about the death of her 58-year-old husband six years ago, diagnosed as Creutzfeld-Jakob.

"This didn't have to happen," said Ewanitz, co-founder of the CJD Voice support group. "We've been warning them (government agencies) that every cow that goes into the food chain should be tested."

In Kansas, 62-year-old Linda Foulke died of the disease last Sunday, and a specialist at the Wesley Medical Center in Wichita confirmed the diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, the Wichita Eagle reported on Friday.

Bill Patton, Foulke's son-in-law, said doctors told the family the type of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Foulke contracted was different from the type tied to mad cow disease. But Patton was quoted as saying the family was worried there might be a connection.

Wesley Medical Center spokeswoman Cheryle Olsen said she would not comment on the case other than to say the family was likely too grief-stricken to understand the situation clearly.

Meanwhile in Putnam's case, his family says his death is a mystery and they are awaiting word from a British laboratory on a brain biopsy test. He first showed symptoms of the disease while living in Alaska.

Additional reporting by Jim Christie in San Francisco, Carey Gillam in Kansas City and Toni Clarke in New York

Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd”

“I highly doubt that case. The time it took him to contract the disease and then die of it could possibly be over a year. In which time there would've been many more reported cases of mad cow disease and CJD.

"We've been warning them (government agencies) that every cow that goes into the food chain should be tested."
-as for that, i sure know i don't want a government agency man handling every cow before it gets to my table, much less pay for all of it. (a new "beef tax" maybe?) I give that article article a cynical "hmmm" at best.”