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B Joe Baca (D-CA)
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B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
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B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
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Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI)
Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
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P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
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* Tom Latham (R-IA)
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The E. Coli Vaccine

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:44:37 PM PDT

I just got back from Planned Parenthood. In my financially-depressed state I figured it'd be best to let Uncle Sam pick up the tab for my birth control pills. Why do I bring that up here? Well, in my book I compare our approaches to food safety with our approaches to safe sex. I had to fill out a bunch of forms and chat with a nurse before getting my pills. They wanted to make sure I was taking precautions for all kinds of STDs as well as for pregnancy. They gave me some handouts to warn me that the birth control pills alone don't prevent STDs. They verified that I'd been tested for STDs within the past year and that my tests were negative. And then I got my pills. Voila! Safe sex accomplished.

That's how we should deal with food safety. Not with condoms and birth control pills but by decreasing risky behaviors and preventing the spread of disease and the contamination of our food, AND by following that up with testing. In the case of E. coli, we could do that. Don't keep the cows in feedlots. Let them graze on pasture. Or - still better than what we've got now - keep them in the feedlots but let them eat grass for the last few days of their lives. And even then - even if there is E. coli 0157:H7 in the cow's gut, it's STILL not in the meat until somebody screws up at the slaughterhouse. But we allow slaughterhouses to run so fast (to maximize profits, at the expense of animal welfare, worker safety, and food safety) that occasionally somebody at the gut table screws up and splatters manure everywhere. Now, if E. coli 0157:H7 was in the cow, it's in the meat. And that meat might get mixed up with many other animals and sold in one big tainted batch as ground beef.

So what's our plan? Raising the cows in cleaner, healthier, safer conditions? Slowing down the line speed in slaughterhouses? Nope. An E. coli vaccine for cows. Which is - if anything - a very short term fix. If the cows are still in filthy conditions, and the manure's still getting into the meat, it's only a matter of time before some new bug comes along that can harm us. Going back to safe sex, I got the HPV vaccine but that's not a get out of jail free card to go out and have unprotected sex. Even with the vaccine, I'm still susceptible to all other STDs - and the cows and meat will still be susceptible to all kinds of pathogens even after being vaccinated for E. coli.

I'm not saying the E. coli vaccine is a bad thing. If it works, great. I mean, when given the choice, I got the HPV vaccine. But it's not a substitute for preventing disease by keeping the cows in healthier conditions, just as the HPV vaccine doesn't mean I can take home a new guy from the bar every night to have unprotected sex (umm, not that I would, or would want to). Nor does it mean we don't need to test the meat for pathogens (just like my vaccine doesn't mean I no longer require annual pap smears).

And yet, the USDA tests ground beef up to 4 times per month but STILL doesn't have the legal authority to shut down a plant that consistently fails its tests. And who knows how often the processing plants actually test for pathogens - or if they actually throw out tainted meat when their tests find any. We know from the peanut and pistachio salmonella outbreaks earlier this year that those companies still sold the tainted nuts even AFTER they tested positive for salmonella.

Once the food safety bill passes (assuming it does) food companies regulated by the FDA will be required to report positive test results to the FDA - but beef falls under the USDA and so they won't be affected by the new law. Pathetic.

Jill Richardson :: The E. Coli Vaccine

Tags: E. coli, Food Safety, E. Coli Vaccine, (All Tags)

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The E. Coli Vaccine | 12 comments

Financially depressed. (4.00 / 4)

It mostly seems to be that that's the only way you're depressed. I hope so. You're doing great work - keep it up!

by: count @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 19:36:31 PM CDT

by: you @ soon

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I have been SO HAPPY (4.00 / 3)

since I lost my paying job and began writing full-time. I LOVE it! Except for the money part - that is really, really scary. These dumb birth control pills were running me $60/mo so that's why I decided to head over to Planned Parenthood where I could get 'em for free. Wish I could do that for my other prescription, bc it costs $150/mo.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

by: Jill Richardson @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 20:32:08 PM CDT

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by: you @ soon

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Your comparison (4.00 / 4)

of healthy sex and healthy livestock is a great way of explaining it. And also amusing!

I get my pills for only 12 bucks a month (Canadian $) and that's without insurance. I wonder why the big difference...

by: madfoodskills @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:24:21 PM CDT

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by: you @ soon

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question about AIDS.. (4.00 / 2)

I am 57..Its been quite some time since I had to deal with sexual stuff. And when I was sexually wild in my 20s, there was no aids. At some point I am going to date again and have sex. What so you do to protect yourself? Do you have a piece of paper that shows you have been tested?? Or do you insist on condoms?

But beef falls under the USDA and so they won't be affected by the new law. Pathetic.
How did we let this happen??

by: LeeN @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 07:03:25 AM CDT

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Insist. Be safe... (4.00 / 1)

At first? All the "papers" in the world ain't gonna protect you from itchy, scratchy, boily bugs, and etc...

And then you go from there.

"The greenest building is the one already built" - Carl Elefante

by: JayinPortland @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 07:18:18 AM CDT

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by: you @ soon

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I'd do a bit of research and talk to Planned PH (4.00 / 2)

(to get UTD on what's going on) and above all, protect yourself at all costs (insist! on condoms). If a guy isn't willing to meet your protection standards, kick him to the curb.

Aids has been on the uptick in some communities, and I think older adults is one.

by: nycstray @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 12:02:31 PM CDT

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by: you @ soon

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Is this what you mean by (4.00 / 1)

Safe Sex?

I'm so confused.

And Darwin wept.

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

by: Anonymous Bosch @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 12:19:17 PM CDT

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Darn they're cute! (4.00 / 1)

oh Dawg, help me now . . .

by: nycstray @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 22:15:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It gets better. wait till (0.00 / 0)

they smoke their cigarettes

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

by: Anonymous Bosch @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 22:46:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Vote with your dollars! (4.00 / 2)

Buy Pasture and Grass-fed meats whenever you can. We recently started making a grass-fed beef jerky that we sell out of every time we make a batch, so there is definitely some demand, even up here in economically depressed central New York...

I just love the way corporations think that more drugs are the answer to the problem of feeding ruminants corn. The whole profit operation is based on the feed-lot and subsidized corn. If we took the damn subsidies off corn, then grass would stand a fighting chance. And, since grass is basically just solar powered, the environmental impact is so much less from grass-fed.

Of course, the other concern is the quality of the vaccine. How much less testing do they get to do on the safety of this vaccine than on those given humans? And what of the costs? How many beef farmers working on extremely low profit margins already, can afford yet another drug for their animals? In the long run, isn't it cheaper to prevent "disease by keeping the cows in healthier conditions"?

"We are living in an interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of short-term thinking."-Jacques-Yves Cousteau

by: supak @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 18:35:13 PM CDT

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there's a problem with your thought process . . . (4.00 / 1)

you're being too f***ing rational!

your link isn't working for me :(

by: nycstray @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 22:14:42 PM CDT

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