The U.S. government has the authority to bar meat companies from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court has ruled.  The Department of Agriculture’s failure to test more than a fraction of cows for the brain-wasting disease prompted one meat company to announce that it would test all of its bovines

According to a recent article written by the Associated Press, The Food and Drug Administration had promised in January 2004 to close loopholes in a ban on putting cattle remains in cattle feed. However, according to the article, the loopholes seem to remain:

  • Ground-up cattle remains can be fed to chicken, and chicken litter is fed back to cattle. Poultry feed that spills from cages mixes with chicken waste on the ground, then is swept up for use in cattle feed.
  • Cattle blood can be fed to cattle and often comes in the form of milk replacement for calves.
  • Restaurant leftovers, called “plate waste,” are allowed in cattle feed.
  • Factories are not required to use separate production lines and equipment for feed that contains cattle remains and feed that does not, creating the risk that cattle remains could accidentally go into cattle feed.
  • Besides being fed to poultry, cattle protein is allowed in feed for pigs and household pets, creating the possibility it could mistakenly be fed to cattle.
  • Unfiltered tallow, or fat, is allowed in cattle feed, yet it has protein impurities that could be a source of mad cow disease.

One would think tough enforcement is in order on the feeding of animal parts to other animals that are eventually consumed by humans. This should be a “no brainer.”Continue Reading What to do about the “Mad Cow”

FOOD IRRADIATION UPDATE
January 15, 2005
“People’s perception of the disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is
coloured by the fact that it’s not a very nice disease,” adding that
salmonella, botulism and E. coli are much more effective killers.” Stephen
Moore, chairman of bovine genomics, University of Alberta’s department of
agriculture
“We’ve resolved our differences. Both

We as Americans have grown up believing that our food supply is the safest in the world. But the CDC estimates that over 300,000 people are hospitalized and over 5,000 die, just from eating food contaminated with a pathogen. In recent years, E. coli outbreaks have been linked to not just ground beef, but also

Canadian officials said Tuesday that they had found a new case of mad cow disease, a report made more worrisome because the cow was born after feed restrictions intended to prevent the spread of the disease were put in place in 1997.
It was the second infected cow from the western province of Alberta found

We as Americans have grown up being told that our food supply is the safest in the world. However, the CDC estimates that each year over 76 million of us become ill, 300,000 are hospitalized and over 5,000 die, just from eating food contaminated with a food borne pathogen.

In recent years, E. coli outbreaks have been linked to not just ground beef, but also to sprouts, lettuce, apple juice and steaks. Salmonella outbreaks have been traced to foods such as tomatoes, orange juice and cantaloupe. In the last months the largest Hepatitis-A outbreak in United States history has been linked to green onions. Last year, school children in a Chicago suburb were fed chicken fingers contaminated with ammonia. And now, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or “Mad Cow” disease has been discovered at a slaughterhouse in Washington State.

While the incubation period for most food borne pathogens is a matter of days, and human symptoms of hepatitis-A infection frequently do not show up for over a month, symptoms of “Mad Cow,” or the human variant known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, may not appear for decades. Because we should not have to worry about the meat we eat today, and the impact that it could have on us days or decades from now, we need stronger and more aggressive regulation and enforcement by the Government, specifically the USDA. This arm of the government must do everything it can to protect the consuming public from tainted product and to protect the US meat industry from economic suicide.Continue Reading What to do about the “Mad Cow”

Does America really have the safest food supply in the world? The Center for Disease Control estimates that each year over 76 million of us become ill, 300,000 are hospitalized and over 5,000 die, just from eating food contaminated with a food borne pathogen.

As I said in a recent op-ed What to do about