Return to 1997 CHRISTMAS Index
Return to 1997 CHRISTMAS Index
| The final paragraph of our Summer 1996 edition ran... |
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| Finally of course there is the all important question is BSE/CJD just a problem for Great Britain or could it be world wide . We have no way of knowing at the moment but we did see a report on UK Channel 4 Teletext page 462 on 1996 April 8 concerning a Mr Howard Lyman of Montana who gave up cattle ranching and is now involved in "Eating with a conscience campaign" - Washington DC. Mr Lyman is reported to have said " I'm waiting for BSE to happen over here. 14% of US cows are fed to other cows. 100,000 a year die from an unknown illness. It's frightening." |
In the Times of 1997 November 14, an article appears headed: “US herds carrying mad cow disease”. According to a new book “Mad Cow USA: Could the Night-mare Happen Here?” co-authors John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, thousands of American cattle are carrying a deadly strain of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. There has been evidence since 1985 of a strain of BSE in US cattle but American regulators have played down the dangers and erred on the side of the meat industry. The book contends that although the strain of BSE linked to CJD in people is specific to Europe, other fatal strains are present in North America. Strains of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) were first detected in the 1980s by Dr Richard Marsh, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Dr Marsh who grew up on his father's mink farm in Oregon, found a strain of TSE in farmed mink which had been given feed containing meat from “Downer”* dairy cows. He then injected the virus found in the mink into Holstein bull calves, which caught the disease rapidly and died. He was not certain how the cows fed to the mink got the disease in the first place but conclude that rendered ruminants in the feed were the likeliest source. His findings and his call for a ban on using material from ruminants in cattle feed were dismissed by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Within the EU although the use of animal based feed for sheep and cattle was banned in1994, and by the UK for all farm animal feeding in 1996, it is still permitted and indeed used in many member states for rearing pigs, poultry and fish. Whilst BSE infected animals and all others in the herd must be destroyed, the law allows the carcasses of animals with rabies and other diseases to be used for feed. Recently in Belgium the country's first cow officially admitted to be suffering from BSE was slaughtered, mistakenly rendered down for animal feed, and then included in consignments of feed-stuff to the Netherlands and Poland instead of being incinerated. Belgian officials explained that this had been done while the cow's brain was being analysed, and that the vet who had reported the case to the authorities had originally thought the animal was suffering from rabies.
*Downer Cow Syndrome is described thus in “Black's Veterinary Dictionary” : “Sometimes in cases of 'milk fever' (parturient paresis, hypo-calcaemia) a cow goes down and never gets up again; even though the 'milk fever' itself is treated successfully”. The typically erudite article which gives details of treatments and various suggested causes of the syndrome, concludes : “A proportion of 'downer' cows are, in fact, cases of BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE).” Return to Article
Further disquieting news on the possible long term evils of some of today's doubtful feeding practices comes in a “Reuters” report printed in the “Times” of 1997 November 24: "Mutant rats on the prowl" Santiago: An ecological group has warned Chileans about 2ft-long “mutant rats” that have attacked barnyard animals in a suburb of the capital. Mauricio Barraza, president of the group, is said to believe that the rodents grow so big because they feed on hormone-fattened poultry's droppings.
