Mad Cow confirmed in California......

[diggingdogfarm]

Just great!

A senior manager with a California rendering company said Tuesday a cow at its Hanford, Calif., transfer station tested positive for mad cow disease.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-04-24-18-05-45

This is one reason why "pink slime" was not a good idea!
There was no way to assure that "pink slime" was free of spinal tissue!


~Martin

 

[jp61]

That's just great! Thanks for the info!

 

[jp61]

So they don't know if any of the other cows had it and if it was distributed or not?

 

[diggingdogfarm]

I'd say it's way too early to know the extent of it, if that's even possible.
As I understand it, routine testing is random, they don't test every beeve.
Almost without a doubt there are others.


~Martin

 

[jp61]

Here's another link...http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...QYSZRA?docId=108bfe5103e74427b5eb8e2f75b58ff9

 

[diggingdogfarm]

"The infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the U.S., was found as part of an Agriculture Department surveillance program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease."

40,000 a year out of millions slaughtered? :icon_eek:


~Martin

 

[diggingdogfarm]

"There is really no cause for alarm here with regard to this animal"

Duh!!!!!

Of course there isn't, they found that one!!!

It's the ones that they're NOT finding out of the millions slaughtered that we should be worried about!!! LOL


~Martin

 

[daveomak]

Evening all,  I'm not up for reading all the USDA or who ever prints "medical" news about bovines.... Does anyone know if other parts of the animal are infected with the disease besides the brain ??

Is it spinal tissue only ???  When purchasing cow neck bones or other parts of the animal, are the nerves infected ???  I do like eating the whole animal so I am wondering what parts of the animal should be avoided... Is there spinal tissue in a porterhouse steak or other steaks from the back bone ???  How about oxtail to avoid ??? I love oxtail ....

If 1/40,000 is infected and 1,000,000 are slaughtered, there are about 25 infected cows/year in the food chain....  I'm not an alarmist... I eat raw eggs in my Ramos Fizzes....

Will cooking neutralize the problems....

 

[diggingdogfarm]

According to the European Scientific Steering Committee here are the average levels of Mad Cow in an infected beeve.
Brain - 64 percent ... Spinal cord - 26 percent ...Other central-nervous-system tissue - 6.4 percent ...Small intestine - 3 percent ....Eyes and other parts - less than 1 percent.

Beef "products" may be infected due to greedy recovery of skeletal meat, "pink slime" being one of them.

The infectious agent in Mad Cow disease is a prion, which are known to be resistant to heat.

While the possibility of becoming infected is extremely remote, it's certainly something to be aware of.

About 35,000,000 beeves are slaughtered in the USA each year.



~Martin

 

[DanMcG]

good info Martin! Thanks.

 

[chef jimmyj]

This is a excerpt from Wikipedia on Prions and Transmission...If this is true there is a hell of a lot more than Pink Slime to worry about...JJ

Current research suggests that the primary method of infection in animals is through ingestion. It is thought that prions may be deposited in the environment through the remains of dead animals and via urine, saliva, and other body fluids. They may then linger in the soil by binding to clay and other minerals.[sup][52][/sup]

A University of California research team, led by Nobel Prize winner Stanley Prusiner, has proven that infection can occur from prions in manure.[sup][53][/sup] And since manure is present in many areas surrounding water reservoirs, as well as used on many crop fields, it raises the possibility of widespread transmission. It was reported in January 2011 that researchers had discovered prions spreading through airborne transmission on aerosol particles, in an animal testing experiment focusing on scrapie infection in laboratory mice.[sup][54][/sup] Preliminary evidence supporting the notion that prions can be transmitted through use of urine-derived human menopausal gonadotropin, administered for the treatment of infertility, was published in 2011.[sup][55]   [/sup]

[sup]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion[/sup]

 

[chef jimmyj]

Additional reading on the subject. There is hope...JJ

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/...wsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120424

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/...wsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120425

 

[daveomak]

Thanks.... interesting reading....  Sounds like the infected animals, have primarily been associated with dairy operations...   I would like to assume free range cattle and primarily beef cattle would have less opportunity to contract the disease... Back to the ox tails..

 

[scarbelly]

I have a friend that is the nutritional PHD in charge of the daily feeding of over 1,000,000 head of cattle in 18 feed lots and as of yesterday they were not at all concerned that this had gone beyond the one dairy cow. They are being very cautious and double checking everything but are fairly confident that it will not turn into the same epidemic they had in Europe