Song in my head: Stomp, push, shove, mush, Fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home......Eminem
MAD COW NEWS
Lets take a look at some recent mad cow disease news....Since it is the season of fear from terrorists, ghouls, goblins, missing Iraq explosives....From the NYT....
The Contagion of Fear
The disease's fatal grip on the brain seems to come out of nowhere, afflicting an otherwise healthy person and turning him into an incoherent muddle. In Ulster County in upstate New York, that was how death came to at least two people in the last year. The rare brain malady called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease caused the death of one resident in November 2003 and of a second this fall. LINK
Father says autopsy showed rare disease was not found in daughter's brain
An autopsy on one of five Ulster County residents believed to have died from the brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob's disease found that the disease was not present in the woman's brain, her father said. Colleen Staccio, 46, died in August at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston after being diagnosed with CJD. But an autopsy report from the National Prion Disease Research Center at Case Western University in Cleveland said the disease was not present in Staccio's brain, according to her father, Don Genther. LINK
Internationally beef consumers are still wary.....
Japan and the United States reached an agreement this morning that will allow the export of some American beef. The Japanese halted trade after a case of mad cow disease in Washington state last December, but now they have agreed to do business again.
Before the ban, Japan was a top market for U.S. Beef, buying about 1.4 billion dollars a year. The president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau, Scott VanderWal, said today's agreement is a great business boost for area ranchers. "We have some of the best beef in the U.S. Right here in the upper midwest, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana area," he said. "And to be able to export that to Japan is certainly a good thing. Despite the good news, the U.S. still has some work to do. Japan plans to place a number of restrictions on the new trade. They include new mad cow test policies, revised domestic rules and regulations and age restrictions. VanderWal said the changes should not have a huge impact.
Last week Panama announced the removal of some restrictions on U.S. beef, allowing the importation of products originating from animals no more than 30 months old. Last Wednesday, Panama's Agriculture Ministry began allowing U.S. beef certified as coming from packing plants inspected by a veterinarian and killed after September 2004.The U.S. is one of the nation's main suppliers. (Via FSNet listserv, by subscription)
Officials of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) have returned from international meetings at which they lobbied on behalf of Canadian cattle producers with representatives from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, the United States, and Central American countries.CCA President Stan Eby accompanied Federal Minister of Agriculture Andy Mitchell on a trade mission to Asia. During the mission an agreement was signed with China to reinstate imports of Canadian bovine semen and embryos. Canada had been China’s number one supplier of bovine genetics prior to the diagnosis of BSE and subsequent trade disruptions (Via FSNet listserv, by sub)
A European Commission report released on Monday was cited as saying that EU embargo measures on British beef could be lifted next year, following a sharp fall in recorded cases of mad cow disease in Britain, but the report was quoted as stressing that, "But this is dependent on progress on a range of issues, including compliance with the full testing programme and satisfactory inspection reports from the FVO (Food and Veterinary Office)."EU health commissioner David Byrne was cited as saying the number of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, has fallen by 95 percent in the past three and a half years in Britain.From 124.41 cases per 10,000 animals tested 2001, the number fell to 6.49 cases between January and July this year -- lower than the average number of cases in Portugal, which saw an embargo on beef exports lifted last month. (via FSNet listserv, by sub)
Mad-cow fears in France
France said on Thursday it was tracing 10 people who had received blood transfusion from a person now diagnosed with the fatal, human form of mad-cow disease.
The individual is the eighth French person to be diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the health ministry said in a press release. LINK
France said on Thursday it was tracing 10 people who had received blood transfusion from a person now diagnosed with the fatal, human form of mad-cow disease.
The individual is the eighth French person to be diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the health ministry said in a press release. LINK
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United Kingdom: updateOctober 21, 2004, 149 people in the United Kingdom have been clinically diagnosed with variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease [1]. Five of these patients were still alive. All clinical cases of vCJD with available analysis have been methionine homozygotes at codon 129 of the prion protein gene. The best fitting statistical model (a quadratic) indicates that the epidemic passed a peak in 2000. Extrapolation of the model predicts 6 deaths in the next 12 months (95% prediction interval of 1 to 12). There remains the possibility of future peaks, which may occur in patients in different genetic groups. There is also the possibility of on-going person to person spread. LINK
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