Song in my head: Neither one's a phony....So let's get rid of Francesconi................Jack Bog



MAD COW

From No More Mr. Nice Blog:

If you have any interest in mad cow disease and any suspicion that maybe we're not being told the whole truth about it, you need to read "The Case of the Cherry Hill Cluster," from this week's New York Times Magazine. Max writes about Janet Skarbek, who's discovered that there were eight victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) among people who ate food served at Garden State Race Track in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, between 1988 and 1992 -- far, far more cases than would be expected based on CJD's prevalence in the population at large. (Mad cow disease is one form of CJD.) |link|

I linked to this story back on March 18 and thought it very unusual to have so many CJD cases concentrated from one location.

Via FSNet by subscription:

Mad cow
March 27, 2004
The Associated Press
Ira Dreyfuss
WASHINGTON -- The United States has, according to this story, formally notified its trading partners that U.S. beef is safe to eat, a principal step toward negotiations to lift bans they imposed because of mad cow disease.
The story says that letters to his counterparts abroad from the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian, Ron DeHaven, were accompanied by summaries of what the United States has done to protect beef safety and search for other cases of mad cow. About 50 countries banned U.S. beef or cattle since bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was identified in December in a cow in Washington state.
DeHaven was quoted as saying in a statement Friday that, "This information demonstrates that any remaining trade restrictions against U.S. beef and beef products can be lifted without compromising safety. The department said U.S. responses to its case of BSE fully comply with international standards. It urged the countries that banned the import of U.S. beef or cattle to "modify any remaining trade restrictions."


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