(JA)Livestock striking back against humans

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Livestock striking back against humans

 

Asahi Shimbun

March 21, 2001

 

`We haven't eaten meat for some time now,'' said a Japanese friend of mine

who has long lived in Paris with his wife. ``We're living on vegetables and

fish. We have to take chances with fish, too.''

 

In Europe, foot-and-mouth disease, a contagious livestock sickness, is

raging like a plague, and the mad-cow scare, which for a while appeared to

be subsiding, is now resurging.

 

Foot-and-mouth disease strikes cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle and

pigs. While it does not infect people, it causes deterioration of the

quality of meat from infected livestock. Infected cows' milk plummets in

volume.

 

Mad-cow disease fills the brains of afflicted cattle with cavities like a

sponge and paralyzes their entire bodies. Humans can contract it from eating

tainted meat, and it claims a high death rate.

 

The practice of giving feed made from offal and powdered bones to livestock

is thought to be the cause of the epidemic.

 

Slaughter is the only way to stem the spread of foot-and-mouth disease and

mad-cow disease. Hundreds of thousands of head of livestock have already

been culled in various countries.

 

In Paris, meat shops are not doing business, and meat dishes have been

conspicuously dropped from restaurant menus. Poultry, the only item that

would appear safe, is also under suspicion because of the possible use of

animal-derived feed. For the same reason, consumers tend to shun sea trout

and other fish raised at fish farms.

 

The other day, my friend and his wife visited a restaurant serving Provencal

cuisine, where only fish dishes, strictly free of meat, were available.

Although he said this was nothing to complain about, he did in fact grumble

to me that perhaps because he was not accustomed to eating fish, the dishes

he had were shockingly unpalatable.

 

The mad-cow scare has touched off ever-growing repercussions. An

international rugby tournament has been called off in Britain, while a

German Cabinet minister has resigned for failing to take appropriate

measures. In the United States, a ban on meat imports from Europe has sent

pork prices soaring on the Chicago Board of Trade.

 

Animal-derived feed has been used to raise livestock fast at low cost. In

another efficiency ploy, many head of livestock have been crammed into

narrow feedlots. For safety, this feeding practice relies on a subtle

balance among various factors. Once that balance is lost, infectious

diseases spread fast and cause panic.

 

The outbreaks of mad-cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease are livestock's

potent vengeance against human beings' self-centered way of doing things.

That is how the epidemics are being viewed by Europeans.

 

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