I expect the Luddites and anti-free-traders will seize on this info:
Investigators tentatively traced the first U.S. cow with mad cow disease to Canada, which could help determine the scope of the outbreak and might even limit the economic damage to the American beef industry.
Dr. Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department’s chief veterinarian, said on Saturday that Canadian officials provided records indicating the sick Holstein was in a herd of 74 cattle shipped from Alberta, Canada, into this country in August 2001 at Eastport, Idaho.
“These animals were all dairy cattle and entered the U.S. only about two or two-and-a-half years ago, so most of them are still likely alive,” DeHaven said.
It will also make the asshole Democratic candidates look rather foolish, as they really did try to blame the economic impact of this lone cow with “Mad Cow Disease” on Bush:
The former governor, whose state has a large dairy cow population, said the Bush administration failed to aggressively set up a tracking system that would allow the government to quickly track the origins of the sick cow, quarantine other animals it came in contact with and assure the marketplace the rest of the meat supply is safe.
“What we need in this country is instant traceability,” he said.
Dean said such a system should have been set up quickly after the mad cow scare that devastated the British beef industry in the mid- to late-1990s. The Bush administration was still devising its plan when the sick cow was slaughtered Dec. 9, and on Friday the government still hadn’t determine the infected animal’s origins.
“This just shows the complete lack of foresight by the Bush administration once again,” Dean said. “This is something that easily could be predicted and was predicted.”
Which is why the standards and procedures in place today that made sure that no bad beef went to the market, no one became ill from bad beef, and that insured that only one cow was infected- this was predictable. It really is like Tourette’s: B-B-B-Bush Sucks! B-B-Bush Bad!
I guess since Dean is already calling for a bailout of big beef, we know where he would stand on the farm bill and the airline bail-out.
S.W. Anderson
If you’ll check the AP wire, as I did yesterday, you’ll probably still find there a story about how the Bush administration and Republican-controlled Congress killed in one of their all-Republican conference committees a sensible measure to quarantine and examine downed cows and steers, to find out why the animals can’t walk or stand. As I recall, the measure also called for standardized ID’ing of all the animals, so if trouble arises, they can be traced and quarantined quickly and efficiently.
Doing those things, of course, could serve to reassure domestic and foreign consumers that there really is no danger, that when trouble comes along there are safeguards in place to identify and contain it, before people and other animals are endangered.
The cattle industry didn’t want this measure — extra trouble and expense. Well, the industry got its way. And with it, a whole lot of trouble and expense for everyone in the cattle industry and for many people in many other connected industries.
Forgive me for being direct, but just as the beef industry was penny wise and pound foolish in this matter, your being so quick to bash Democrats over it comes off looking lame. Before giving sway to the bash-Democrats reflex, you’d do well to make sure you’re square with the facts.
John Cole
I am aware oif all of the above, yet none of that would have done anything to queell the damage to the beef industry. The damage will be done because of a stop in the flow of export beef, which is more based on thge stigma of tainted beef then whether there is any- as has already been noted, the exports have stopped before any tainted beef hit any shelves or was consumed by anyone. Those procedures would not stop the stigma whatsoever…
As it is, the cow has been traced, the export bans will be lifted, and you and I- the American consumer, will pay the price. Why? Because if exports had stopped, the price of beef would drop…
Dean had no proposal to stop the ‘predictable’ from happening, he just after the fact (is there any record of him prior to this on the issue) chose to use it as something to bash Bush again.
Terry
Increasingly, I’m coming to the conclusion that Howard Dean couldn’t even manage a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor.
cameron
” the exports have stopped before any tainted beef hit any shelves or was consumed by anyone. ”
While in the car yesterday during an on the hour news brief, I heard stated that some of the taiinted beef had been sold in 3 western states. Whether that means in stores for human consumption or for cow feed, I am looking for a source.
cameron
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/23/national/main590039.shtml
“The Agriculture Department insists the meat supply is safe because parts that carry the disease – the brain, spinal cord, and lower part of the intestine – were removed before the meat was processed.
But as a precaution, the government has recalled an estimated 10,000 pounds of meat cut from the infected cow and from 19 other cows all slaughtered Dec. 9 at Vern’s Moses Lake Meat Co., in Moses Lake, Washington.
CBS News Correspondent Joie Chen reports the meat was shipped to four Western states.
Ken Peterson, of the agriculture department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, “it’s too early to know how much of the product has been brought back, though we know that some of the product is beginning to be at least held at the retail facilities.”
Officials say the slaughtered cow was deboned at Midway Meats in Centralia, Oregon, and the meat was sent to two other plants in the region, identified as Willamette and Interstate Meat, both near Portland, Oregon. “
Kimmitt
Again, as Gov. Dean so adroitly pointed out, the problem is the economic fallout, not the public health fallout. After watching the Canadia beef industry get kneecapped, the Fed should have put into place some sensible regulations to improve our tracking and decrease the likelihood that the east Asian markets would end up closed to us.
nathan
Has Gov. Dean ever done anything adroitly??
Unless, of course, “adroit” has another meaning as a synoynm to “angrily rolling up sleeves”…
Kimmitt
Yes. He inherited a deficit and bequeathed a surplus in Vermont, while simultaneously providing health care coverage to 99.6% of the children there (a bit over 96% enrolled).
Among many other things.
Mike
If anyone is interested in an informed account of Tourette’s syndrome, Oliver Sack’s “Anthropologist on Mars” is readable and probably a good place to start. One chapter reports on a Tourettic surgeon and pilot.
S.W. Anderson
When it comes to the safety of any part of any cow tainted with mad cow disease, or any meat from the same slaughter bench, any of the same tools and utensils, gloves, work surface, carts, shared packaging, etc., consider these facts:
The disease is caused not by a pathogen that can be cooked to death or irradiated, but rather by a protein. The danger is actually one of contact with a contaminant, a poison.
Removing the brain, spine and lower intestinal tract of a large animal as done in a slaughterhouse is a fast, messy business employing big, relatively crude power cutting tools and large implements that are immediately used on the next carcass. Blood, spinal fluid, lymph, bone and other tissues spatter, spray and drain all over the place.
A skilled veterinary surgeon or pathologist who knew he was dealing with a potentially deadly contaminant within the animal would be challenged, using surgical implements and careful technique, to remove the dangerous parts without contaminating any surrounding parts or surfaces.
In the current situation, blanket statements that there is no danger to anyone because the affected animal’s brain, spine and lower intestines were sent to a rendering plant are irresponsible, misleading and could prove fatal to some unlucky people before it’s over with.
As for the politics, this is a good example of people who disdain oversight and despise regulation getting their way thanks to politicians who feel the same way. Now, to their grief if they have a conscience, and in a few years if we’re not very lucky, to the ultimate grief of those who get the disease and those the victims leave behind, maybe there’s a better appreciation of better regulation and oversight were called for, where so-called downed animals are concerned.
Certainly, regulation and inspection can be overdone. In dealind with something like this, however, it’s better for *all concerned* to err on the side of safety.
Charlie
While considering the above information about prions, yu should also consider that prion based diseases aren’t at all well understood, they appear to depend at least as much on genetic flaws in the victim as in any external insult, and, welll, they don’t even seem to make a lot of sense. (Consider, eg, that proteins are completely metabolized to amino acids in digestion. How is the beef protein even getting into the bloodstream, much less past the blood-brain barrier? This is not to claim that the prion-transmission theory is wrong, either. It’s just to point out that nobody knows how it works!)
In any case, the most important thing about BSE and the variant Kreuzfeld-Jacobs that we suspect is assocated with it is that it’s very very very hard to transmit. There are fewer that 200 cases total among a population of several hundred million in Europe who may have been exposed.
In the same interval, there have been hundred of thousands of fatalities from influenza, and tens of thousands from conventional food poisoning.
So don’t get panicked about it.
JKC
Good advice from Charlie.
Robin Roberts
Indeed, there is nothing sillier than worrying about BSE.
gavin
Is it just me or does it seem weird Dean doesn’t have the ability/discipline to hold his fire until he has all the facts or at least can “adroitly” score political points when things crop up in the news? He reminds me of Indiana’s Dan Burton going after Clinton for every perceived mistep or crisis. After a while you just tune out, even if he does have a valid point.
Meezer
Some facts:
the beef we eat is 18 months old, give or take a couple of months.
No American would eat (or could chew) 4 1/2 yr old beef. You could make shoes out of it, it would be so tough. It would make good broth meat, but there is no market for that, so it is not sold that way. In this country we eat young beef cattle not mature dairy cattle.
From a former beef raiser.
Kimmitt
Let’s keep in mind that the Primary is still going; anyone who doesn’t pop up the moment something happens will get drowned out by the other candidates. Gov. Dean is simultaneously throwing spaghetti up against the wall and seeing what sticks and making it more difficult for his opponents to be heard. If he wins the primary, expect a much more disciplined approach.
Andrew Ian Dodge
Well this should stop all the assinine comments about British beef. Well one hopes so at least…
the talking dog
Well, this should put a damper on that Atkins Diet mania…
S.W. Anderson
Charlie, thanks for some good additional insight and points. (I have a theory, and it’s only that, that when a whole lot more is known about the human genome and about cancer, we’re going to learn that who gets that dreaded disease, and what form is contracted, is determined in very large part, though not always completely, by who has what specific genetic/chemical susceptibility.)
Meezer, your point’s well taken where meat that gets packaged and goes out to stores and restaurants, is concerned. My worry is about contamination in the slaughterhouse.
Concerning Dean’s commenting. Why wouldn’t he comment? This is a legitimate public health and safety issue with public policy ramifications affecting the whole country plus trade and international relations, fercryinoutloud. Furthermore, the man’s a physician, which means some folks might reasonably wonder what’s the matter with him if he did not have something to say about it.
Finally, I want to say that I view this situation as an awful shame for a lot of good, decent, hard-working people who raise and sell beef. I’m sure that many who have done everything they could possibly do to send wholesome meat to the marketplace are going to suffer financially and in other ways because of this. Most of them aren’t getting rich in this field to begin with, and while they love what they do, it’s a lot of hard work.
As a taxpayer and consumer, I support helping shore them up during this setback, and support preventive measures for the future that are based on science and common sense. I hope others will feel the same way.
In the end, they need us and we need them.
gavin
primary rhetoric aside, it still doesn’t help Dean to reflexivly dump on everything Bush says or does. At this point it’s rather laughible Dean can appear other than a dyed in the wool Liberal to the rest of the electorate no matter how much “middle of the road” window dressing he tries to pile on. It will just look phony, much like his recent touting of Jesus Christ or trying to appeal to the southern folk with Confederate flag bumper stickers. It’s rather sad, really.
Mike
“While considering the above information about prions, yu should also consider that prion based diseases aren’t at all well understood, they appear to depend at least as much on genetic flaws in the victim as in any external insult, and, welll, they don’t even seem to make a lot of sense….”
So the Americans who are vulnerable are weak, and we should simply avoid having a stake in their well-being?
“In any case, the most important thing about BSE and the variant Kreuzfeld-Jacobs that we suspect is assocated with it is that it’s very very very hard to transmit. There are fewer that 200 cases total among a population of several hundred million in Europe who may have been exposed.”
My understanding is that people who have spent 6 months or more in England are banned from giving blood in the US. Are you going to be consistent, and say the ban should be lifted if the person shows no signs after 6 years?
Because if not, your deemphasise of the situation doesn’t seem appropriate.
“In the same interval, there have been hundred of thousands of fatalities from influenza, and tens of thousands from conventional food poisoning.”
Other than “out of sight out, of mind,” is their a reason to believe that in 20 years everyone in England born before 1985 won’t come down with CJD and die suddenly?
I don’t imagine contracting CJD is like opening a CD at a bank, where the rates of growth of the condition are uniformly incremental for everyone involved. How do we know that the people who have died from CJD so far are the rule, and not the exceptional few who died early?
dave
I must say I know very little about Mad Cow disease, but Bush has lied about other important issues (i.e., tax cuts, reasons for war, etc.) I find it extremely difficult to trust his idea of government oversight, or rather, the lack there of…
machination
The crazy thing is; this guy would be agruing the same line as you if it were a Democratic president. But because it’s Bush, he’ll defend his lack of action until he is blue in the face. Pretty scary..do you stand for anything? All I see going on is criticism at Dean for having the damn balls to make a stand on the issue.