http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/Greger122403.cfm

USDA Misleading American Public about Beef Safety
December 24, 2003 by Michael Greger, M.D.

It is not surprising that the U.S. has mad cow disease given our flaunting of
World Health Organization recommendations.[1] What is surprising, however, is
that we actually found a case given the inadequacy of our surveillance program,
a level of testing that Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, probably the world's
leading expert on these diseases, calls simply "appalling."[2] Europe and Japan
follow World Health Organization guidelines[3] and test every downer cow for
mad cow disease[4]; the U.S. has tested less than 2% of downers over the last
decade.[5] Most of the U.S. downer cows, too sick or injured to even walk, end
up on our dinner plates.[6]
In Canada, authorities were able to reassure the public that at least the
downer cow they discovered infected with BSE--Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy,
or mad cow disease--was excluded from the human food chain and only rendered
into animal feed.[7] U.S. officials don't seem to be able to offer the same
reassurance, as the mad cow we discovered may very well have been ground into
hamburger.[8] How then, can the USDA and the beef industry insist that the
American beef supply is still safe? They argue that the infectious prions that
cause the disease are only found in the brain and nervous tissue, not the
muscles, not the meat.

For example, on NBC's Today, USDA Secretary Veneman insisted "the fact of the
matter is that all scientific evidence would show, based upon what we know
about this disease, that muscle cuts -- that is, the meat of the animal itself
-- should not cause any risk to human health. "[9] The National Cattlemen's
Beef Association echoed "Consumers should continue to eat beef with confidence.
All scientific studies show that the BSE infectious agent has never been found
in beef muscle meat or milk and U.S. beef remains safe to eat. "[10] This can
be viewed as misleading and irresponsible on two counts.

First, American do eat bovine central nervous system tissue. The United States
General Accounting Office (GAO) is the investigative watchdog arm of Congress.
In 2002, the GAO released their report on the weaknesses present in the U.S.
defense against mad cow disease. Quoting from that congressional report, "In
terms of the public health risk, consumers do not always know when foods and
other products they use may contain central nervous system tissue... Many
edible products, such as beef stock, beef extract, and beef flavoring, are
frequently made by boiling the skeletal remains (including the vertebral
column) of the carcass..."[12] According to the consumer advocacy organization
Center for Science in the Public Interest, spinal cord contamination may also
be found in U.S. hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza toppings, and taco fillings.[13]
In fact, a 2002 USDA survey showed that approximately 35 percent of high risk
meat products tested positive for central nervous system tissues.[14]

The GAO report continues: "In light of the experiences in Japan and other
countries that were thought to be BSE free, we believe that it would be prudent
for USDA to consider taking some action to inform consumers when products may
contain central nervous system or other tissue that could pose a risk if taken
from a BSE-infected animal. This effort would allow American consumers to make
more informed choices about the products they consume."[15] The USDA, however,
did not follow those recommendations, deciding such foods need not be
labeled.[16]

Even if Americans just stick to steak, they may not be shielded from risk. The
"T" in a T-bone steak is a vertebra from the animal's spinal column, and as
such may contain a section of the actual spinal cord. Other potentially
contaminated cuts include porterhouse, standing rib roast, prime rib with bone,
bone-in rib steak, and (if they contain bone) chuck blade roast and loin. These
cuts may include spinal cord tissue and/or so-called dorsal root ganglia,
swellings of nerve roots coming into the meat from the spinal cord which have
been proven to be infectious as well.[17] This concern has led the FDA to
consider banning the incorporation of "plate waste" from restaurants into
cattle feed.[18] The American Feed Industry Association defends the current
exemption of plate scrapings from the 1997 feed regulations: "How can you tell
the consumer 'Hey, you've just eaten a T-bone steak and it's fine for you, but
you can't feed it to animals'? "[19]

Even boneless cuts may not be risk-free, though. In the slaughterhouse, the
bovine carcass is typically split in half down the middle with a band saw,
sawing right through the spinal column. This has been shown to aerosolize the
spinal cord and contaminate the surrounding meat.[20] A study in Europe found
contamination with spinal cord material on 100% of the split carcasses
examined.[21] Similar contamination of meat derived from cattle cheeks can
occur from brain tissue, if the cheek meat is not removed before the skull is
fragmented or split.[22] The World Health Organization has pointed out that
American beef can be contaminated with brain and spinal cord tissue in another
way as well.[23]

Except for Islamic halal and Jewish kosher slaughter (which involve slitting
the cow's throat while the animal is still conscious), cattle slaughtered in
the United States are first stunned unconscious with an impact to the head
before being bled to death. Medical science has known for over 60 years that
people suffering head trauma can end up with bits of brain embolized into their
bloodstream; so Texas A&M researchers wondered if fragments of brain could be
found within the bodies of cattle stunned for slaughter. They checked and
reportedly exclaimed, "Oh, boy did we find it."[24] They even found a 14 cm
piece of brain in one cow's lung. They concluded, "It is likely that prion
proteins are found throughout the bodies of animals stunned for slaughter."[25]

There are different types of stunning devices, however, which likely have
different levels of risk associated with them. The Texas A&M study was
published in 1996 using the prevailing method at the time, pneumatic-powered
air injection stunning.[26] The device is placed in the middle of the animal's
forehead and fired, shooting a 4 inch bolt through the skull and injecting
compressed air into the cranial vault which scrambles the brain tissue. The
high pressure air not only "produces a smearing of the head of the animal with
liquefied brain,"[27] but has been shown over and over to blow brain back into
the circulatory system, scattering whole plugs of brain into a number of
organs[28] and smaller brain bits likely into the muscle meat as well.[29]

Although this method of stunning has been used in the United States for over 20
years,[30] the meat industry, to their credit, has been phasing out these
particularly risky air injection-type stunners. The Deputy Director of Public
Citizen argues that this industry initiative should be given the force of
federal regulation and banned,[31] as they have been throughout Europe.[32]

The stunning devices that remain in widespread use drive similar bolts through
the skull of the animal, but without air injection.[33] Operators then may or
may not pith the animals by sticking a rod into the stun hole to further
agitate the deeper brain structures to reduce or eliminate reflex kicking
during shackling of the hind limbs.[34] Even without pithing, which has been
shown to be risky, these stunners currently in use in the U.S. today may still
force brain into the bloodstream of some of these animals.[35-38]

In one experiment, for example, researchers applied a marker onto the stunner
bolt. The marker was later detected within the muscle meat of the stunned
animal. They conclude: "This study demonstrates that material present in... the
CNS of cattle during commercial captive bolt stunning may become widely
dispersed across the many animate and inanimate elements of the
slaughter-dressing environment and within derived carcasses including meat
entering the human food chain."[39] Even non-penetrative "mushroom-headed"
stunners which just rely on concussive force to the skull to render the animal
unconscious may not be risk free. People in automobile accidents with
non-invasive head trauma can still end up with brain embolization,[40] and
these bolts move at over 200 miles per hour.[41] The researchers at Texas A&M
conclude, "Reason dictates that any method of stunning to the head will result
in the likelihood of brain emboli in the lungs or, indeed, other parts of the
body."[42]

And, finally, even if consumers of American beef just stick to boneless cuts
from ritually slaughtered animals who just happen to have had their spinal
columns safely removed, the muscle meat itself may be infected with prions. It
is unconscionable that the USDA and the beef industry continue to insist that
the deadly prions aren't found in muscle meat.[43] In 2002, Stanley Prusiner,
the scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of prions,
proved in mice, at least, that muscle cells themselves were capable of forming
prions.[44] He describes the levels of prions in muscle as "quite high," and
describes the studies relied upon by the Cattlemen's Association as
"extraordinarily inadequate."[45] Follow-up studies in Germany published May,
2003 confirm Prusiner's findings, showing that an animal who is orally infected
may indeed end up with prions contaminating muscles throughout their body.[46]
And just last month, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Swiss
scientists found prions in the muscles of human CJD victims on autopsy. Eight
out of the 32 muscle samples turned up positive for the deadly prions.[47]

The discovery of a case of mad cow disease in the U.S. highlights how
ineffective current safeguards are in North America. The explosive spread of
mad cow disease in Europe has been blamed on the cannibalistic practice of
feeding slaughterhouse waste to livestock.[48] Both Canada[49] and the United
States[50] banned the feeding of the muscles and bones of most animals to cows
and sheep back in 1997, but unlike Europe left gaping loopholes in the law. For
example, blood is currently exempted from the Canadian[51] and the U.S.[52]
feed bans. You can still feed calves cow's blood collected at the
slaughterhouse. In modern factory farming practice calves may be removed from
their mothers immediately after birth, so the calves are fed milk replacer,
wh
ch is often supplemented with protein rich cow serum. Weaned calves and
young pigs also may have cattle blood sprayed directly on their feed to save
money on feed costs.[53] For more information on this and other risky
agriculture practices please see
http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm

And the Canadian[54] and U.S. feed bans[55] also allows the feeding of pigs and
horses to cows. Cattle remains can be rendered down and fed to pigs, for
example, and then the pig remains can be fed back to cattle.[56] Or rendered
cattle remains can be fed to chickens and then the chicken litter, or manure,
can be legally fed back to the cows.[57] So the fact that according to the USDA
the most infectious tissues of the U.S. mad cow case, the brain, spinal cord,
and intestines, "were removed from this animal and sent to rendering" is not
necessarily reassuring.[58]

D. Carleton Gajdusek was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work
on mad cow-like diseases.[59] He was quoted on Dateline NBC as saying, "it's
got to be in the pigs as well as the cattle. It's got to be passing through the
chickens."[60] Dr. Paul Brown, medical director for the US Public Health
Service, believes that pigs and poultry could indeed be harboring mad cow
disease and passing it on to humans, adding that pigs are especially sensitive
to the disease. "It's speculation," he says, "but I am perfectly serious."[61]

The 2002 General Accounting Office report concluded: "BSE may be silently
incubating somewhere in the United States. If that is the case, then FDA 's
failure to enforce the feed ban may already have placed U.S. herds and, in
turn, the human food supply at risk. FDA has no clear enforcement strategy for
dealing with firms that do not obey the feed ban... Moreover, FDA has been
using inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable data to track and oversee feed ban
compliance."[62] The report can be downloaded at
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

Despite these shortcomings, Secretary Veneman and Washington's governor both
assured the public that they were still having beef for Christmas, reminiscent
of the 1990 fiasco in which the British agriculture minister appeared on TV
urging his 4-year-old daughter to eat a hamburger.[63] Four years later, young
people in Britain were dying from an invariably fatal neurogenerative disease
called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease--the human equivalent of mad cow
disease--which they contracted through the consumption of infected beef.[64]
With an incubation period up to decades long, no one knows how high the final
human death toll will be.

[1] http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm 
[2] Mad Cow Disease in Canada. May 23, 2003 9:00am KQED Forum hosted by Angie
Coiro. .
[3] World Health Organization Consultation on Public Health Issues Related to
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and the Emergence of a New Variant of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. MMWR 45(14);295-6, 303. 12 April 1996.
[4] Mad Cow Disease in Canada. May 23, 2003 9:00am KQED Forum hosted by Angie
Coiro. .
[5] Even assuming 195,000 downers a year and that every single of the tests in
the surveillance program's history was performed on downer cattle, (48,000 in
13 years)/(195,000 x 13 years) is less than 2%.
[6] A Review of USDA Slaughterhouse Records for Downed Animals (U.S. District
65 from January, 1999 to June, 2001) Farm Sanctuary, October 2001.
http://www.nodowners.org/downedanimals.pdf
[7] "Critics say U.S. needs to do more to protect against mad cow." The Journal
News (New York) 29 May 2003.
[8] "Mad Cow Meat May Have Been Eaten, Official Says." Reuters. December 23,
2003.
[9] "First US Case Of Mad Cow Disease Found In WA." The Bulletin's Frontrunner.
December 24, 2003.
[10] National Cattlemen's Beef Association Statement. December 23, 2003.
[11]
[12] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to Congressional
Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban
and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts.
GAO-02-183. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf 
[13] "Health and Consumer Groups Urge USDA to Keep Cattle Spinal Cord Tissue
Out of Processed Meat" Center for Science in the Public Interest News Release.
10 August 2001.
[14] USDA, Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA Begins Sampling Program for
Advanced Meat Recovery Systems, News Release.3 March 2002.
[15] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to Congressional
Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban
and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts.
GAO-02-183. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf 
[16] USDA Response To GAO Recommendations on BSE Prevention. Release No. F.S.
0071.02.
[17] Center for Science in the Public Interest. Nutrition Health Letter. June,
2001.
[18] FDA Veterinarian Newsletter. Volume XVII, No. VI. November/December 2002.
[19] USA Today, June 10, 2003.
[20] Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Risk Analysis of Transmissible
Spongiform Encephalopathies in Cattle and the Potential for Entry of the
Etiologic Agent(s) Into the U.S. Food Supply . 2001. /madcow_report.pdf>.
[21] Joint WHO/FAO/OIE Technical Consultation on BSE. OIE Headquarters, Paris,
11-14 June 2001.
[22] USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. Current Thinking on Measures that
Could be Implemented to Minimize Human Exposure to Materials that Could
Potentially Contain the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Agent. 15 January
2002.
[23] Joint WHO/FAO/OIE Technical Consultation on BSE. OIE Headquarters, Paris,
11-14 June 2001.
[24] Reuters 29 August 1996.
[25] Lancet Vol 348 August 31, 1996.
[26] Lancet Vol 348 August 31, 1996.
[27] European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General
Scientific Opinion on Stunning Methods and BSE Risks. January 2002.
[28] Transfusion, Vol. 41, No. 11, 1325, November 2001.
[29] European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General
Scientific Opinion on Stunning Methods and BSE Risks. January 2002.
[30] Transfusion, Vol. 41, No. 11, 1325, November 2001.
[31] Testimony of Peter Lurie, MD, MPH Deputy Director Public Citizen's Health
Research Group Before the Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism
Subcommittee Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. 4 April
2001.
[32] Regulation (EC)No 999/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Laying down rules for the prevention, control and eradication of certain
transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. 22 May 2001.
[33] European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General
Scientific Opinion on Stunning Methods and BSE Risks. January 2002.
[34] European Commission Scientific Report on Stunning Methods And BSE Risks
(The Risk of Dissemination of Brain Particles Into the Blood And Carcass When
Applying Certain Stunning Methods. December 2001).
[35] Berliner und MŸnchener TierŠrztliche Wochenschrift 2002 Jan-Feb;
115(1-2): 1-5.
[36] Joint WHO/FAO/OIE Technical Consultation on BSE. OIE Headquarters, Paris,
11-14 June 2001.
[37] European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General.
Scientific Steering Committee Opinion on the Safety of Ruminant Blood with
Respect to Risks. 14 April 2000.
[38] European Commission Scientific Report On Stunning Methods and BSE Risks
(The Risk of Dissemination of Brain Particles into the Blood and Carcass when
Applying Certain Stunning Methods. December 2001).
[39] Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2002 Feb; 68(2): 791-8.
[40] Letters to the Editor. The Lancet Vol 348 September 14, 1996.
[41] European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General.
Scientific Steering Committee Opinion on the Safety of Ruminant Blood with
Respect to Risks. 14 April 2000.
[42] Letters to the Editor. The Lancet Vol 348 September 14, 1996.
[43] National Cattlemen's Beef Association news release. 21 May 2003. .
[44] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2002 Mar 19;99(6):3812-7.

[45] Mad Cow Disease in Canada. May 23, 2003 9:00am KQED Forum hosted by Angie
Coiro. .
[46] European Molecular Biology Organization Reports 4, 5 (2003), 530.
[47] New England Journal of Medicine 349(2003):1812.
[48] Kimberlin, R. H. "Human Spongiform Encephalopathies and BSE." Medical
Laboratory Sciences 49 (1992): 216-217.
[49] Canadian Food Inspection Agency BSE Fact Sheet. May 2003 P0091E-00.
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/heasan/disemala/bseesb/bseesbe.shtml
[50] Food and Drug Administration 2000 CFR Title 21, Volume 6, Chapter 1, Part
589. http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/21cfr589_00.html 
[51] Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Regulations: Food for Ruminants,
Livestock and Poultry (Part XIV), "Prohibited Materials"
[52] Food and Drug Administration 2000 CFR Title 21, Volume 6, Chapter 1, Part
589. http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/21cfr589_00.html 
[53] International Center for Technology Assessment. Citizen Petition Before
The United States Food And Drug Administration. 1/9/03.
http://www.icta.org/legal/madcow1.htm
[54] Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Regulations: Food for Ruminants,
Livestock and Poultry (Part XIV), "Prohibited Materials"
[55] Food and Drug Administration 2000 CFR Title 21, Volume 6, Chapter 1, Part
589. http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/21cfr589_00.html 
[56] Public Citizen. Letter to the FDA and USDA RE: BSE. 21 April 2001.
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/gsfc/articles.cfm?ID=1562
[57] Food and Drug Administration Sec. 685.100 Recycled Animal Waste (CPG
7126.34)
[58] FDCH Political Transcripts December 23, 2003
[59] Unconventional viruses and the origin and disappearance of kuru. 13
December 1976.
http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1976/gajdusek-lecture.html
[60] NBC Dateline 14 March 1997.
[61] Pearce, Fred. "BSE May Lurk in Pigs and Chickens." New Scientist 6 April
1996: 5.
[62] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to Congressional
Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban
and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts.
GAO-02-183. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf 
[63] Chicago Tribune 21 May 21 2003.
[64] "Ministers Hostile to Advice on BSE." New Scientist 30 March 1996: 4.

Lauren
________
See my cats:  http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm