Mad Cow Disease

[kjun]

Perhaps all of you knew this but I did not so I thought I would pass it on:

 

"Mad cow" disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE),

resides in the nervous system of cattle. It can only be spread --

to humans or other cattle -- by consuming the remains of an

infected animal, and even then only via the consumption of the

parts of the animal (brains and spinal column) that carry the

disease. Eating a steak from an infected cow is perfectly safe,

but anything made from brain -- as a number of regional

delicacies are -- could inflict terminal twitching.

 

So, eat your beef. Just not the wrong parts!

 

the Cajun

[kjun]

Perhaps all of you knew this but I did not so I thought I would pass it on:

 

"Mad cow" disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE),

resides in the nervous system of cattle. It can only be spread --

to humans or other cattle -- by consuming the remains of an

infected animal, and even then only via the consumption of the

parts of the animal (brains and spinal column) that carry the

disease. Eating a steak from an infected cow is perfectly safe,

but anything made from brain -- as a number of regional

delicacies are -- could inflict terminal twitching.

 

So, eat your beef. Just not the wrong parts!

 

the Cajun

[Trixie]

It's amazing how panicky people can get. I work in a garden center, and I've had several people ask me if they could get mad-cow disease from bone meal fertilizers.

The disease is caused by a prion (I once won a lot of points at Scrabble with that word!), an aberrant protein (cell). It cannot be asbsorbed through vegetable matter and passed back into humans. Yet when I explain this to concerned customers, they look at me like I'm lying, and endangering their health just to get them to buy a $4.00 box of bone meal!

Oh well. I'll have mine medium rare!

Trix

[Trixie]

It's amazing how panicky people can get. I work in a garden center, and I've had several people ask me if they could get mad-cow disease from bone meal fertilizers.

The disease is caused by a prion (I once won a lot of points at Scrabble with that word!), an aberrant protein (cell). It cannot be asbsorbed through vegetable matter and passed back into humans. Yet when I explain this to concerned customers, they look at me like I'm lying, and endangering their health just to get them to buy a $4.00 box of bone meal!

Oh well. I'll have mine medium rare!

Trix

[Guest Tristan]

True. Eating the muscle, which means steaks and chops, is pefectly safe. The thing to worry about (if you want to worry) is ground beef or processed meats, such as hot dogs. The problem is that an advanced machine allows processing plants to scrape more meat off the spinal column. This extra meat can then end up in your Big Mac.

[Guest Tristan]

True. Eating the muscle, which means steaks and chops, is pefectly safe. The thing to worry about (if you want to worry) is ground beef or processed meats, such as hot dogs. The problem is that an advanced machine allows processing plants to scrape more meat off the spinal column. This extra meat can then end up in your Big Mac.

[Steven_Draker]

I remember a case in the United Kingdom of the Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease occurring in people who have consumed beef that may have been contaminated.

[Steven_Draker]

I remember a case in the United Kingdom of the Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease occurring in people who have consumed beef that may have been contaminated.

[Rick Munroe]

I think I'll go back to being a vegan again. :o

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>I think I'll go back to being a vegan again. :o

 

Why not? They say veganism's better the second time around. :+

[Trixie]

RE: Veganism

 

I don't understand... Devon, are you making a poop joke?

Trix

[Bilbo]

RE: Cannibal Cows

 

Aren't cows vegetarians? Did I misread or did the original poster say that this disease can only be spread between cows when one of them eats the brain or the brain stem meat from another cow?

[+ nycman]

RE: Cannibal Cows

 

>Aren't cows vegetarians? Did I misread or did the original

>poster say that this disease can only be spread between cows

>when one of them eats the brain or the brain stem meat from

>another cow?

 

Cow's were vegetarian's...until humans produced cattle "feed" that contained the remains of other dead cows. High protein, low cost, but it fucked up mother nature's plan pretty bad.

 

"It's not nice to fool mother nature"

...now you know what she meant!

[JamesK840]

RE: Cannibal Cows

 

Yep, it's really pretty disgusting what the agribusiness lobby get away with. Next time any politician, from either party, mentions doing something for the 'family farmers' shoot them (with a paintball gun, of course, wouldn't want to advocate anything felonious), you'd be doing the world a favor!

 

While much of the feeding of cattle to cattle has finally been stopped they are still allowed to feed cattle to chickens and pork (aren't they also herbivores?) and then chicken to cattle. This may be another avenue of spreading the disease (a disease which may well have existed and been spreading here for years, given the amazingly lax standards of testing and rejection we've continued to have even with the specter of this disease clearly visible). The prions are pretty damn scary, nothing seems to kill them, and anything 'mechanically separated' may contain brain and spinal tissue.

[AdamSmith]

>>I think I'll go back to being a vegan again. :o

>

>Why not? They say veganism's better the second time around.

>:+

 

Something to ruminate on. :9