<<The pour on in the UK isn't used on deer so the exposure could be to the same type of substance but in a different form.>> Agree, only the pharma companies have pockets much deeper then the cattle industries and may have more well placed people in their back pockets to keep this investigation away for a long time. unfortunatly.
The problem for the cattle industry is their immense size and no agreement on what to do about anything. Over 65% of the millions of cows in the US are in herds of 25 or less. So how in the world do you get that many people to agree on anything. The national organization makes a statement to the press but that statement is only supported by a tiny percent of the cattle owners. Their total membership is hardly a blip on the scale. I would agree with you about the pharma companies but you would have to add the fertilizer companies, the monopolistic packers, and goverment agencies all covering their rears and trying to keep the truth from coming out. The other problem is that no one probably knows the truth in the first place. You can bet if the F&Gs of the states where the wild deer CJD is occurring know anything that would point the finger at themselves they are madly trying to deflect that blame. They try to blame the private herds and vice versa so politics says nothing gets done that would make anyone look bad.
___________________________________________________ How am I doing on the nonsense? _________________________________________________ Investigators Search for Mad Cow Source NewsMax.com Wires Friday, Jan. 2, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Investigators are combing Canadian feed mills and rendering plants to try to pinpoint the source of infection for the Washington state cow with deadly mad cow disease. U.S. officials trying to contain the outbreak of the disease in this country, meanwhile, said Wednesday that a Washington state farm already under quarantine also is home to nine other cows that entered the United States from Canada in 2001 with the infected Holstein. The Mabton, Wash., farm was the diseased cow's final home and also has one of its calves. Dr. Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian, said authorities have good leads on the other 71 cows that entered the United States from the same Alberta herd. DeHaven said the tracking effort "is limited to the state of Washington at this point in time." The searches in both countries are part of an all-out effort to ensure the safety of the food supply and boost confidence in North American beef products that has been shaken by the diagnosis last week of the first U.S. case of the brain-wasting disease and a similar find in Canada in May. The Bush administration announced several steps Tuesday to boost the nation's defenses against mad cow disease, including a ban on meat from cows that can't stand or walk on their own. Those so-called downed animals are more likely than healthy cattle to carry a variety of diseases. Mad cow disease is a concern because humans can develop a brain-wasting illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from consuming infected beef products. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 153 people worldwide, most of them in Britain, have contracted the human form of the illness since the mid-1990s. The cases are thought to be linked to the outbreak of mad cow disease that began in Britain in the 1980s. Another priority in the investigation is locating the source of infection. Canadian investigators are considering whether an Alberta rendering plant could have been the source of contaminated feed that infected the Washington cow and, perhaps, the Canadian cow. Western Canada Records indicate both cows were born in western Canada in the spring of 1997, a few months before the United States and Canada banned the practice of including parts of cattle and other cud-chewing animals in cattle feed. Genetic testing that would confirm the accuracy of the records is pending. Investigators think they have identified Northern Alberta Processing of Edmonton as the rendering plant that was a major supplier of protein, derived from cattle remains, that area feed mills added to the grain they sold farmers before the ban took effect. "The bone meal is the main ingredient we're worried about here," said Dr. Cornelius Kiley of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. But U.S. and Canadian officials said it is far too early to know whether they have found the source of the infection and cautioned they may never be able to pinpoint a batch of feed or a plant. "Plants would get source material from any number of different locations," DeHaven said. "But certainly that is an active area that is being investigated even as we speak." Barry Glotman, president of West Coast Reduction, which owns and operates Northern Alberta Processing and several other rendering plants across western Canada, said it is premature to place blame. "I don't think we produce contaminated feed," Glotman said. As they have every day since the Dec. 23 announcement that mad cow disease had been found in the United States, DeHaven and other officials stressed that the food supply is safe. He acknowledged, however, that the government would have to reorient its detection system for mad cow disease from the slaughterhouse, where downed animals have been the prime candidates for testing. "Well have to get those samples elsewhere," DeHaven said, including from rendering plants, livestock markets and farms. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman estimated there are at least 150,000 downed cattle in the United States each year. Although meat from those animals can't be sold for human consumption, it remains legal to turn them into feed for pets, poultry and pigs. Rendered animal parts also are used for cosmetics, industrial oils and other products. Cattle declared inedible for humans have long been allowed to be used in pet and poultry feed because the rendering process kills infections other than bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), said Dr. Stephen Sundlof, the Food and Drug Administration's veterinary chief. The BSE-causing agent, called a prion, is immune to rendering's sterilization. So the mad-cow discovery means that policy will be reevaluated, he said.