Fwd: Mad Cow Fact Sheet

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" luckypig "

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 23:44:43 -0500

Mad Cow Fact Sheet

 

Mad Cow Fact Sheet

For years Germany asserted it had no mad cow disease inside its borders.

Only when independent rapid testing companies were invited in - against the

wishes of the government - was it suddenly discovered that Germany had a

very significant mad cow disease problem.

The U.S. is currently in the same position as Germany was a year ago - don't

look, don't find.

Mad cow disease experts believe that it is important to test " downed

cattle " - what the industry labels sick animals that have trouble walking to

the slaughterhouses because of neurological problems or other illnesses that

make them want to lie down.

Out of an estimated 36 million cattle slaughtered in the U.S. each year,

about 190,000 are downed cattle, according to Thomas Gomez, a veterinary

epidemiologist with the US Department of Agriculture.

The US tested only about 2,000 cattle in 2001, out of the 36 million

slaughtered, which experts say is far too small to detect mad cow if it were

here. While the US doubled that number to around 4,000 during 2002, many

experts still believe the sample is far too small.

Michael Hansen, a microbiologist with the nonprofit Consumers Union in

Yonkers, N.Y., said the increased search for mad cow cases in the United

States still won't produce a large enough sample to find the disease if it

is lurking undetected. The disease takes several years to develop in cattle

and can't yet be detected without examining the animal's brain.

While the U.S. currently tests one cow out of about 20,000 slaughtered,

Germany tests one out of every three cows going to market - and Japan is

testing every cow it slaughters before releasing meat for sale.

 

 

A downer cow -- one of nearly 200,000

each year the U.S. won't test

 

 

First detected in England in 1986, the disease was recently detected in cows

born and raised in the Czech Republic and Japan, marking the first time the

disease has been confirmed outside of Western Europe. Hansen said there's no

biological reason the disease couldn't have come here before 1989, when the

U.S. government banned imports of sheep and cattle from countries reporting

disease outbreaks.

" When you have a disease that has this long an incubation period, you are

asking for trouble if you don't test thoroughly, " Hansen said.

Brain-wasting diseases have already been detected in mink raised on downed

cattle meat in the United States, suggesting the agent could already be

present but undetected.

There are also cases of wasting diseases in deer and elk first discovered in

Colorado that have spread into neighboring states and the province of

Saskatchewan. The government is now confiscating and killing deer and elk on

game farms in the Western U.S. because of an alarming increase of this brain

wasting disease

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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