Song in my head: Concrete shoes, cyanide, TNT...Done dirt cheap....Neck ties, contracts, high voltage...Done dirt cheap.............................................AC/DC

Since I last updated my mad cow articles there has been another case of mad cow disease in Alabama and the US is trying to fix our reputation with Japan since we botched a shipment of beef. If I was a beef eater I would be concerned about the safety of the food I was feeding my family. Are there enough safeguards in place to protect America's beef supply? What is in cattle feed these days? Are worldwide standards in place? Many of these issues are addressed through articles from FSNet listserv, a food safety listserv, available by subscription and by my own news searches. I try and provide links to articles if they are given or if I can find them.


February 17, 2006

Two more BSE cases have been identified in Ireland. They are in dairy cattle, aged 11 and 12 years in counties Clare and Galway.The total number of cases so far this year is 12. LINK

March 3, 2006

Sweden's first case of mad cow confirmed

Sweden's first case of mad cow disease has been confirmed by the European Union's central laboratory, the EU executive said Friday. Sweden reported the case last week after tests showed symptoms of the illness in a domestic cow. The tests from a 12-year-old cow in central Sweden were sent to the central EU lab in Weybridge, England, which confirmed the disease, the European Commission said. LINK

March 3, 2006

Mad Cow Disease in Netherlands

An eight-year-old cow has been diagnosed with the mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiforme Encephalopathy) in the Netherlands.

Dutch Ministry of Agriculture announced the disease was detected in a farm in the town of Dinkelland in Overijssel province after tests were conducted on a cow already slaughtered.

Mad cow was detected in the other cows at the same farm as well. This is the second case in the Netherlands this year, making the total number of mad cow diseases 82 since 1997. LINK

March 4, 2006

Report: Canada mad cow case points to feed

According to this story, Canada's latest case of mad cow disease probably came from tainted feed, raising questions about safeguards designed to keep the disease from spreading.
Canada confirmed its fourth case of the disease in January. The cow was born in 2000, three years after Canada banned cattle protein in cattle feed.
The cow's age raises questions about the effectiveness of the ban, because the disease spreads only when cattle eat feed containing certain tissue from infected cattle. LINK

March 12, 2006

Hong Kong suspends beef imports from Swift

Hong Kong's Food and Environment Hygiene Department was cited as saying in a statement late Saturday that Hong Kong has suspended imports from Swift Beef Co., based in Colorado, after discovering its products contained bones prohibited under regulations aimed at protecting against mad cow disease, adding, "The decision was made following discovery of beef imports with bones from that plant during inspections. We will contact the relevant authorities for more information concerning the beef imports in question." LINK

March 13, 2006

Mad cow disease found in Alabama

Officials say animal had not entered food supply

A cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department said Monday, confirming the third U.S. case of the brain-wasting ailment. LINK

March 13, 2006

Consumers Union: Third confirmed case underlines urgent need to tighten FDA animal feed rules, improve USDA surveillance

The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) announcement today of a third case of mad cow disease in the United States underlines the need to take additional precautions immediately, says Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. Mad cow disease has already caused 150 deaths in the United Kingdom, apparently from eating tainted beef.
"It's unacceptable that the American public has been waiting for more than two years for the FDA to tighten its animal feed rules," states Jean Halloran, food policy expert at Consumers Union. After the first case of mad cow was discovered in the United States in December 2003, then FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan said that FDA would end the practices of feeding chicken coop floor wastes, restaurant wastes, and cows' blood to cattle, all of which FDA said at the time could potentially transmit the mad cow disease agent. However the agency never followed through. LINK

March 15, 2006

Government to scale back mad cow testing

Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease, the government, according to this story, intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder blamed for the deaths of more than 150 people in Europe.
The Agriculture Department boosted its surveillance after finding the first case of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003. About 1,000 tests are run daily, up from about 55 daily in 2003.
Still, a reduction in testing has been in the works for months. The department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford, mentioned it when he announced the new case of mad cow disease, stating, "As we approach the conclusion of our enhanced surveillance program, let me offer a few thoughts," and that the U.S. will follow international standards for testing. LINK

March 15, 2006

Newspapers move US mad cow story off front pages

Mad cow disease is no longer front-page news at many leading newspapers. which put stories of the latest U.S. case on the inside of Tuesday's editions.
The story says that the move off the front pages appears to support the U.S. beef industry's claims that consumers are not as concerned as they had been that the disease is a threat to the food supply. Also, the industry claims that as consumers learn more about the disease they gain confidence in the safety measures being taken.
However, economists warned that the government must remain vigilant in testing for mad cow and safeguarding the food supply because consumer confidence is fickle and could quickly change for the worse. LINK

March 15, 2006 The LA Times has a good editorial on the shortcomings of the feds mad cow surveillance program.

Mad Cow Madness

Mad cow saturated fat in hamburgers is, according to this editorial, more likely to do the American public harm at this point than the tiny probability of getting the human variant of mad cow disease. But the discovery of a third infected cow in the U.S. this week serves as a reminder that this country is not magically protected against the deadly affliction, partly because federal officials aren't following their own recommendations for keeping it out of the food supply.Japan has again blocked U.S. imports of beef, not because of the discovery in Alabama but because cow parts it had banned — such as brains and spinal cords, the most likely to harbor the disease — still recently found their way in. The lesson: Assurances and half-measures by the federal government aren't enough to safeguard beef supplies. LINK

March 15, 2006

Japan Confirms 23rd Case Of Mad Cow Disease

Japan has confirmed its 23rd case of mad cow disease in a 5-year-old Holstein reared for food, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.

The bull, raised on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, was killed Monday and tested positive for the degenerative disease on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.

LINK

March 15, 2006

Mad cow

The government was cited as saying Wednesday that the Alabama cow infected with mad cow disease will be exhumed so investigators can get a better idea of its age.
Investigators are also trying to determine where the cow came from. The infected animal had spent less than a year on the Alabama farm, which has not been identified.
Alabama agriculture commissioner Ron Sparks was cited as saying the animal was a red crossbreed.
The cow's age is important because of safeguards the U.S. created nearly nine years ago to prevent the disease from spreading. A local veterinarian examined the animal's teeth and said it may have been 10 years old or older. LINK

March 16, 2006

Japan urges U.S. not to scale down mad cow testing

Japanese Vice Agriculture Minister Mamoru Ishihara said was cited as saying at a news conference on Thursday that Japanese consumers, already wary of eating U.S. beef due to mad cow fears, will become even more concerned if the United States goes ahead with plans to cut back on its mad cow testing, adding, "Japanese consumers are concerned about the U.S. way of conducting surveillance."
Ishihara was further cited as saying U.S. beef would not win Japanese consumers' confidence unless the United States properly carries out its mad cow surveillance programme, adding, "American beef won't sell in Japan unless they regain trust from Japanese consumers."

LINK

March 16, 2006

First case of vCJD reported in a Japanese patient: Update

A detailed description of the first case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in Japan, originally reported in February 2005, has just been published [1,2]. The patient was a 51 year old man, who had spent around 24 days in the United Kingdom in 1990, during the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak. He is known to have eaten mechanically recovered meat during his visit, and although exposure in other European countries he visited, including France and Japan, cannot be excluded, it is thought that he may have been exposed to the BSE agent during his UK visit. If exposure in the UK was the source of his infection, then the incubation period to illness onset was 11.5 years. LINK

March 17, 2006

Japan confirms 1st mad cow case in cattle

An official of the Health Ministry was cited as saying Friday that officials in Japan have confirmed the country's first case of mad cow disease in cattle raised to provide meat, after a 14-year-old cow in the southern prefecture of Nagasaki was confirmed to have been infected with the disease.
Japan had previously confirmed 23 cases of the disease, but they all involved cattle bred to produce milk. The official said that all body parts from the cow have been destroyed. LINK

March 16, 2006

US-Japan-Beef

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns was cited as criticizing Japan on Thursday while addressing a National Agriculture Day luncheon for totally banning imports of American beef, saying the United States will not close its automobile market because of defects, stating, "We would not close borders because somebody says we need to recall cars because of a defect of one nature or other. Some of these recalls are for defects that are dangerous...to life."He made the comments when asked whether the United States has a systemic problem in its inspection system, given the two recent cases of shipping beef with bone parts, banned under agreed export requirements due to the risk of mad cow disease, to Japan and Hong Kong.The discovery of a backbone led Japan to reimpose its import ban on Jan. 20, while Hong Kong stopped imports earlier this month from the plant that shipped the ineligible beef.

March 16, 2006

US Senate review may delay mad-cow tracing plan

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, was cited as saying a Senate panel overhauling U.S. farm policy next year will evaluate a cattle identification system being developed to fight mad cow disease, a step that may slow the system's implementation, adding, "This is an issue that we're going to deal with in the farm bill. It is an alternative to country-of-origin labeling."

LINK

March 17, 2006

S. Korea expects delays on US beef imports

South Korea was cited as saying Friday that the resumption of limited imports of American beef may be delayed until May following the latest case of mad cow disease in the United States.
However, the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry said it will stick to an earlier pact to resume imports by April of meat from young American cattle -- widely believed to be safe from the disease -- if the latest infected cow is found to be more than 8 years old. LINK

March 17, 2006

Mad Cow

The U.S. Agriculture Department was cited as saying Thursday that after exhuming the Alabama cow with mad cow disease, the government has concluded she was at least 10 years old and could have been infected before steps were taken to safeguard cattle feed.
Experts checked the Alabama cow's teeth and determined she was 10 or older, the department said Thursday evening. That was the estimate of a local veterinarian.
Earlier Thursday, an official said the age is an approximation. LINK

March 20, 2006

Japan rejects US calls to end beef ban

March 20, 2006 Agence France Presse EnglishTOKYO - Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the government spokesman, was cited as telling a news conference Monday that Japan has rejected a US call for the immediate resumption of US beef imports, because Japanese consumers will not buy the meat unless Washington clears concerns over mad cow disease, adding, "Unless safety is firmly secured, imports cannot resume. In the first place, Japanese consumers will not buy it" if Washington fails to prove US beef is safe. "US measures should be considerable enough to get rid of concerns. We need to demand what we need to demand." LINK

March 22, 2006

Creekstone Farms to sue U.S.D.A. over B.S.E. testing

After two years of unsuccessfully lobbying the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to allow it to voluntarily test all of its cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, John Stewart, C.E.O. of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, has announced the company will file a lawsuit against the agency tomorrow (March 23).Company officials have contended that in order for it to resume export trade with customers in Japan, it has been asked to test all of the cattle it processes from its plant in Arkansas City, Kan. LINK

March 23, 2006

Mad cow disease on the wane worldwide

Cases of Bovine Spongiform Encepalopathy (BSE) or “mad cow disease” worldwide are declining, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). They have been dropping at the rate of some 50 percent a year over the past three years, the Organization said today.Amid the current international alarm over avian flu, it is good news that the battle against another worrying disease is being won.In 2005, just 474 animals died of BSE around the world, compared with 878 in 2004 and 1646 in 2003, and against a peak of several tens of thousands in 1992, according to figures collected by the Paris-based World Animal Health Organization (OIE), with which FAO works closely.Only five human deaths resulting from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), believed to be the human form of BSE, were reported worldwide in 2005. All of them were in the United Kingdom – the country most affected by the disease – where nine deaths were registered in 2004 and 18 in 2003. LINK

March 24, 2006

USDA dispatching a technical team to Japan

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced that a USDA technical team is scheduled meet with Japanese government officials on March 28 and 29 to answer questions about a tainted U.S. veal shipment Japanese inspectors intercepted in January and to press for the reopening of the Japanese market to U.S. beef.
"The United States is eager to provide any additional clarification Japan may request so we can resume beef exports to Japan as quickly as possible," Johanns said. "I believe our report is thorough and address[es] the unique circumstances surrounding this ineligible shipment. Now my hope is that we can take the next steps toward resumption of normal trade."

Johanns directed the technical team to meet with Japanese officials after Japan signaled a willingness to receive USDA experts.

The team will be led by Marketing and Regulatory Programs Acting Under Secretary Chuck Lambert and include representatives from the Food Safety and Inspection Service, Agriculture Marketing Service, Foreign Agricultural Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. LINK