According to the news, a second case of mad cow disease has been found in the US.
A while back, when the first case was reported, I read an interesting story that was reprinted on several news sites;
It seems that Japan was a major importer of US beef, but they placed a ban on it after mad cow disease was discovered and demanded that every single cow be tested. One smaller cattle ranch was losing a ton of money because of this, so they figured if they started testing their cattle, they could once again sell to Japan. They built their own lab and were all set to begin testing when the USDA stepped in and told them that they were forbidden to test! Seems that the USDA has the final say on whether cattle ranchers can apply blanket tests to their cattle.
It was stated that if they were allowed to test it would give Americans the impression that untested beef wasn't safe, which wouldn't be fair to all the other cattle ranchers who apparently feel that ensuring the safety of the meat they sell is too much of an imposition. Instead, the USDA proposed spot checks of cows, to test something like 5% of the cattle in the US that they feel are the most at risk. Also some official was supposed to go to Japan to "discuss" the situation (Translation: The US is going to try and bully Japan into dropping their standards to something acceptable to us).
My personal opinion is that the USDA won't allow ranchers to test all their cattle because they know that a percentage of them would almost certainly test positive for mad cow disease, which would probably kill the market for beef.
I've pretty much stopped eating beef. I'll eat it occasionally, but not like I used to.
What does everyone else think about this?
I live in Iowa where a huge portion of cattle are raised and eventually slaughtered for public consumption by a lot of U.S. citizens.
Sometimes when I drive by a farm I look at the cattle grazing out in the pastures and think to myself, "Someday a part of one of you will end up in my stomach."
Trust me, I drive by a ton of them everyday.
Cornfield, soybean field, stinky hog farm or a cattle farm, I drive by 'em all.
I don't worry about mad cow disease for the most part.
Hell, I wrote a thread on whether you all eat the gristle on steak.
I have faith in the USDA...I think that they're doing all they can to prevent contaminated meat from landing on all of our dinner plates.
Do I fear contracting mad cow disease?
Hell yes!
I've read up on what happens to a human being infected with it and believe me, it ain't pretty.
Even so, public doubts about the system do not prevent me from enjoying a delicious steak or burger.
Being a staunch meat eater, I will continue to gorge myself on all kinds of beef.
Post Edited (06-28-04 23:01)
what do I think of mad cow disease?
I dunno, personally I dont like hearing about PMS. *drumroll*
I know I don't want it. And I like sausage (hmmmmmm)
>I have faith in the USDA...I think that they're doing all they can to prevent
>contaminated meat from landing on all of our dinner plates.
I disagree. If they really wanted to prevent contaminated meat from ending up on our plates, they would allow ranchers to voluntarily test each and every cow, if not make it mandatory. I'll even go a step further and say that they should ban the use of feed that contains gound up animal parts. Spot checks will never catch 100% of the infected cows and when they die part of them will be ground up, made into feed, which will then infect more cows. And the cycle will continue. The only way to be sure is to remove the source of the problem and test EVERY cow.
The officials in Britain swore up and down that their beef supply was safe, but it wasn't and some people got sick. Now the same thing is happening here and the USDA still insists everything is just fine...
The government will always insist that everything is fine...untill after the giant rock,that they have been watching head for earth for three years, in only about 5 hours away. I suppose they think that if noone knows about it, it will just go away. Man I hate the government,.
Unfortunately, a lot of times, the cost to ensure full 100% safety is so high that to enforce it would destroy whole industries, put a lot of people out of work and price products out of the reach of most people. So someone at some point decides the cost for 'safe enough' and we all role the dice that we fall under 'safe enough'.
Reality is that bad things happen and the government can't protect us from anything bad every happening in our life. Where things get stupid is when we expect the government to protect us from things it can't and when the government lies to convince us it can.
But, we go on hoping 'safe enough' is good enough. At some point the calculated risk may be wrong. Maybe if it happens to you, you would've been willing to pay a higher price. Maybe if it happens to nobody than you think the price was too high. If the prce is $10 big macs so that no one dies, is it worth it? Probably depends on who dies....
It's not 'the government' as some all knowing and unfeeling entity, but just maybe some guy in a room with a calculator or maybe a group of people in a room, hopeng to get lucky, hoping the numbers are right, hoping no one dies. Often they are right, sometimes they are wrong, but that's life
JohnL wrote:
> If they really wanted to prevent contaminated meat
> from ending up on our plates, they would allow ranchers to
> voluntarily test each and every cow, if not make it mandatory.
> I'll even go a step further and say that they should ban the
> use of feed that contains gound up animal parts. Spot checks
> will never catch 100% of the infected cows and when they die
> part of them will be ground up, made into feed, which will then
> infect more cows. And the cycle will continue. The only way to
> be sure is to remove the source of the problem and test EVERY
> cow.
The US has banned feeding ground up animal parts to animals. IIRC, it was in 1997, the problem being that mad cow disease can take years to show up, so there may be some of it floating around.
The problem with letting each far test for itself (which I don't mind) is that each farmer would have an incentive to cheat, and because Americans move around a lot, the disease takes years to show up, and you never know which hamburger was the culprit. . .well it's just a mess. I agree about testing every cow.
Now what if the Blade movies vampire virus got transferred to cows, and we had vampire cows. . .
The cost to test every cow in the United States would cause a sharp increase in the price of beef. We most likely would notice on the store shelves but not at McDonalds et.all since they use mostly imported beef from South America.
The big hurt comes when, as suggested, the countries that buy cheap American beef can't buy it cheaply anymore. U.S. competative edge is lost and, subsequently, the cattle industry suffers. The effect is that beef production becomes less lucrative and more people get out. Less supply equals higher prices to all consumers, even the big clown.
Next.....it'll be anarchy......cats and dogs living together......
The US food supply is the safest in the world. Short of veganism, your only alternative is to raise your own cattle. Just enjoy your beef, pork, fish or fowl.
I LOVE IT!
JohnL wrote:
>
> What does everyone else think about this?
Stop feeding cows animal parts?
JohnL wrote:
> It was stated that if they were allowed to test it would give
> Americans the impression that untested beef wasn't safe, which
> wouldn't be fair to all the other cattle ranchers who
> apparently feel that ensuring the safety of the meat they sell
> is too much of an imposition. Instead, the USDA proposed spot
> checks of cows, to test something like 5% of the cattle in the
> US that they feel are the most at risk. Also some official was
> supposed to go to Japan to "discuss" the situation
> (Translation: The US is going to try and bully Japan into
> dropping their standards to something acceptable to us).
>
> My personal opinion is that the USDA won't allow ranchers to
> test all their cattle because they know that a percentage of
> them would almost certainly test positive for mad cow disease,
> which would probably kill the market for beef.
>
That's pretty screwed up. Who else thinks that the government never actually went and talked to the Japanese?
I do think that it is the state of business in this country that if so-and-so actually went through with it, then the cattle industry would suffer immensely and we would now be seeing $5 Big Macs.
Sad that legitimate health complaints so heavily affect the industries we all take for granted. Even sadder that profit always wins out over health. Anybody else seen that new Lewis Black special and his compaints about water?
But the mad cow scare has also affected me personally. I've always been interested in trying "sweetmeats" and there's a local taco place that sells them. But with mad cow around, do you think I'm going to try brains? Damn you! I expect normal food poisoning in my food, but not debilitating illness.
>Unfortunately, a lot of times, the cost to ensure full 100% safety is so high that to
>enforce it would destroy whole industries,
True, but what about companies that want to do the testing and are forbidden?
I can't provide a link for it now, but a few years I was reading news stories about the problems with BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone). One dairy refused to feed BGH to their cows and wanted to label their milk as 100% natural. The company that makes BGH complained to the government that if they were allowed to label their milk as such, it would make people think there was something wrong with milk from cows that are given BGH. (BGH makes cows more prone to diseases and infections, which then require more drugs to cure, and traces of those drugs end up in the milk) The government stepped in and told them that they couldn't label their milk as 100% natural.
>Reality is that bad things happen and the government can't protect us from
>anything bad every happening in our life.
Reality is that often, "safe" is decided by cost rather than facts.
>The US has banned feeding ground up animal parts to animals. IIRC, it was in
>1997,
I wasn't aware of that.
I just did a search for more information on this and the first site that came up was a page with a copy of an article from a 2-3 years ago, saying how the US was doing everything it could to prevent any cases of MCD here and how they were confident that they could keep it out of the US. Looks like that worked out real well...
>Reality is that bad things happen and the government can't protect us from
>anything bad every happening in our life.
Reality is that often, "safe" is decided by cost rather than facts.
It's usually both.
What is 'cost' really? If it costs a company more money to test something, that cost is going to come at some expense. Either someone is going to lose a job or the product is going to be more expensive. At some cost point the product will be more expensive than some people are willing to pay. Sales going down means demand for the product is less means people lose jobs..again. So at some point, someone decides that 'to get 95% certainty, the price will go up 50 cents..people will live with that..a little. Some people wont' but not too many. To get 98%, the price will double and not many people will live with that so usage will drop 80% and X companies will go out of business and Y people will lose jobs" So someone decides "well, maybe 95% is good enough because the cost of 98% is too high to guarentee something that probably won't happen anyway. It's a gamble, a gamble based on statistics, but a gamble nonetheless
So, yeah, a lot of times the decision is made on cost. The cost that we're willing to bear. Would you pay $5 for a Big Mac? $8? $10? $15? At what point does the cost to get that certainity become too much?
After all, the American public has gotten really good at making desicions based on personal cost versus 'facts' :) No wonder that that becomes significant in deciding 'safe enough'
i]Looks like that worked out real well...[/i]
You ever made a mistake at work? The government is not some all-powerful, all-knowing entity that is always right that can just pass a law, wave a wand and suddenly the world is ok. It's mostly just a lot of people sitting in offices working day in and day out. Do you trust them to never be wrong? You shouldn't. The trick is, you have to decide whether or not they've done enough...do you think it is 'safe enough' to eat a cheeseburger? Then eat one. If you don't, then don't eat beef. Make a decision, use your best judgement, don't count on the government nanny to run your life and then complain when they fail you
>What is 'cost' really? If it costs a company more money to test something, that
>cost is going to come at some expense. Either someone is going to lose a job
>or the product is going to be more expensive.
I suppose having the government pay for the testing would be out of the question. I mean, there's probably not too much left over after they finish paying for their $500 toilet seats, $50 screws and giving a few billion to other countries...
Besides, if a company wants to perform the tests themselves and either absorb the cost or pass it on to consumers, who is the government to say that they can't? If they can't make it work economically, then they'll fail.
To put it another way, how would you feel if the government forbade car companies from testing a car's brakes before they sell it?
>You ever made a mistake at work? The government is not some all-powerful, all-
>knowing entity that is always right that can just pass a law, wave a wand and
>suddenly the world is ok.
It's not that I want them to protect me from everything, what gets me is how they refuse to acknowledge reality. When MCD popped up in Britain, experts said it was only a matter of time until it happened here, but yet the government insisted it wouldn't be a problem. Now they insist that the infected cows were only isolated cases, while the experts are saying that there are probably many more undetected. Who do you think is right?
>What do you think of mad cow disease?
I'm against it. HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
I'm totally off beef now, not so much because I think I'll get it, but because the beef guys have such a horrible attitude, it's like they're p**sed off at us for not wanting them to poison our food. http://davemunger.blogspot.com