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BSE 
Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PST
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"More people could have 'mad cow disease' than previously thought. Whoa - what? I always thought it was a huge blessing that such a small number of people actually died from vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human version of mad cow). Think about it. A huge population of infected U.K. cattle and a nation of 55 million people, most of whom probably eat beef. And the human death toll was in the low hundreds. But now scientists are reconsidering that.
The Guardian article discusses 2 types of genetic makeups - MM homozygous and MV heterozygous. Until now, all of the people with vCJD were MM homozygous. Now a 30-year-old man just succumbed to vCJD and he's MV heterozygous. They say that might be a problem because:
In some other human prion diseases, such as kuru - thought to be linked to cannibalism in Papua New Guinea - people who are MV heterozygous have incubated the disease for longer than those who are MM homozygous before symptoms have shown. Some MV heterozygous patients are reported to have incubated kuru for over 50 years.
The only bright spot here is that the projected number of people who might die of vCJD is still relatively low. 166 people have died in the UK so far, and a projected 350 more in this new group may still die of it.
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Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 13:24:05 PM PDT
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Did your burger eat chicken poop? Besides being gross, this is one of the so-called "mad cow loopholes." Let me explain.
Chickens are notoriously messy eaters. Debeak them and then they are even messier eaters. They can be fed rendered cow remains. Then the cows can be fed chicken litter - which includes chicken poop, feathers, and dropped chicken food. Thus, cows can still eat cows.
That much is not news. Here's the news. Consumers Union and FACT (Food Animal Concerns Trust) have filed a petition with 37,000 signatures opposing the practice of feeding chicken litter to cows and asking for it to be banned. The FDA has until November 11 to respond to their petition. I am very eager to hear what the FDA will say about this.
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Mon Jun 22, 2009 at 10:50:54 AM PDT
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I was struck by this passage in a Sunday Des Moines Register feature on Iowans in key posts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
[USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service administrator Michael] Michener declined to discuss the department's strategy for promoting international acceptance of biotechnology, saying it's still in the works. But he argues that the Obama administration can be more effective than the Bush administration, which went to the World Trade Organization to unsuccessfully break European resistance to the genetically engineered crops.
Vilsack is taking a lighter approach, Michener said, recounting a discussion the secretary had with his German counterpart.
Vilsack "made this very creative argument on how during the eight years of the Bush administration, the Europeans would lecture us on how we had to bring our citizens along and educate them on the science of climate change. He turned that around and said, 'You know, you've got a similar responsibility on biotech'" Michener said.
That certainly is a "creative" analogy. Getting Americans on board with serious policies on climate change may be our only hope for avoiding a catastrophic global warming scenario. Gaining European acceptance for genetically-modified crops has no comparable global benefit (no, these crops won't magically end world hunger).
But a more important point is after the jump.
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Tue Apr 14, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM PDT
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A new FDA rule is - or was - scheduled to go into effect on April 27 of this year. But now, at the last minute, they have proposed waiting an additional 60 days. I realize that the FDA's been running with no one in the driver's seat since the Inauguration, but those of us who eat still have to eat during all this time!
The new rule:
- Expands the current ban on "certain materials" in cattle feed to ALL animal feed - including pet food. This means that if you cannot currently feed something to a cow, once the rule goes into effect, you can't feed it to ANY animal.
- In addition, the rule bans the entire carcass of any mad cow (or tallow derived from mad cows) from all animal feed. (What? This isn't illegal already???)
- Bans the riskiest material (brains and spinal cord) from cattle 30 months of age or older in animal feed.
- Bans "the entire carcass of cattle not inspected and passed for human consumption that are 30 months of age or older from which brains and spinal cords were not removed" from animal feed.
For me as a pet owner, it's scary that this loophole wasn't closed already. The UK did see cases of cats getting mad cow. Quite frankly, I'm shocked that these things are still legal. And even once this feed ban does take place, we still have areas of vulnerability. While cows under 30 months are considered lower risk for BSE (mad cow), they aren't immune. Japan HAS found cows under 30 mos that tested positive for mad cow before.
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