You're in Mad Cow Country Mad Cow Disease Rears its Ugly Head Again! Part I Mad Cow Disease, also known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (in humans) or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in animals has been reported in the media for several years. German officials hid the fact that the disease, now known as “new variant” CJD (and is the new strain that inspectors and scientists are finding in cows in France, Germany, Spain and England, and now in Canada) has been found in their cattle. The secrecy caused a great furore over there and that seems to be why the Canadian Government is being very transparent . It has caused the disease in over a hundred cows in England, three in France and one in Ireland. Now one animal has been found to have the disease in Canada. It doesn’t seem like a very big deal when you think of the number of people who are succumbing to Cancer, Aids and even the flu, but this is just the scratch on the surface of a potentially much larger problem. U.S. and Canadian food inspection agencies were comfortable that the two countries are "immune" to the disease because they believe they do not allow ruminants to eat ground animal meal. It had been an accepted fact that the feeding of beef, sheep and pig meal (the cooked and ground leftovers of the 50% of the animal that is not used for human consumption) to farm animals has been the cause of the disease. At first, this “stuff” was fed to cows to improve their weights and give them calcium from the bones…and it was fed to chickens and pigs as well. When CJD was discovered to cross the animal/human barrier, the practice was banned…but only for beef. Horses, chickens and pigs were, and still are being fed this type of offal...and often it comes full circle because cows are sometimes fed meal made from chickens which are supposed to be immune to BSE. Now the chickens are coming home to roost! Did you know that gelatin (as in Knox) is one of the most important items imported into Canada and the U.S. from the U.K? And guess what…it’s made from the cooking of beef skin, bones and connective tissue to get a jellied broth which, when concentrated, is the base for gelatin as well as supplement capsules. Well, guess what gelatin is used in…many, many packaged products including most types of ice cream, jello, yogurt, sour cream, soft cheese, cheesecake, mousse, frozen desserts, thickened cream, low-fat butter and spreads, cooked ham, canned meat and seafood, aspics, head cheese, sausages, pates, icings and frostings, bakery glazes, jelly candies, marshmallows, pulled sugar candy, caramel, toffee, lozenges, compressed tablets, licorice, sugared almonds, gum, canned and packaged soups, sauces and gravies, and even many drugs (as fillers and emulsifiers.) Vitamins and health food supplements can be affected as well, so be sure to read those labels carefully. Now I finally know why my vegetarian daughter reads every vitamin bottle label for those niggling details. The companies that manufacture products using gelatin are quick to say that there are stringent regulations in place and quality control is fastidious to make sure that the foods are healthy and almost devoid of harmful substances, and that, besides, prions aren't found in anything other than brain tissue and spinal cord tissue. Checks are routinely done for ash and heavy metal content…which is never completely eliminated as that is not required, but kept within Health Protection and FDA guidelines. Of lesser importance, but worth knowing, nonetheless, is the usage of tallow which is used for various things including soap and wax. Officials reassure interested individuals that none of these products, although they may come from England and from cows, cannot cause Mad Cow Disease. And those same officials maintained that Aids was not contagious and would affect only a very few people. Very disturbing ramifications are seen in the use of beef materials in making vaccines which are injected into children in record numbers, and into seniors in equal haste. Are we putting our small children at risk by allowing these vaccines with unknown history to be used on our next generations, not to mention our elderly parents? Nobody seems to be forthcoming on this front. I’ve heard that several children in different parts of the world have suffered from CJD and certain brain illnesses and it’s been suspected to have come from vaccinations. There’s no proof as yet, but it is proven that companies like Wyeth Ayerst, Aventis, and Smith Kline Beecham manufacture vaccinations for everything from Diphtheria, to Influenza from some form of bovine tissue. Not too long ago the UN Food and Agriculture Org. made an announcement for people not to panic...that "new variant" CJD would not spread around the world because better safeguards had been put into place. Now that one case has been found in Alberta, the plot thickens. Research is being done to find out where the sick cow came from and how many offspring she had and if they might also be infected. And then there are the other cows on all those quarantined farms... It's still no reason to panic, they say, but it seems the beef industry is in for a long hard slog. My question, though, is why are farmers still allowed to feed ground animal meal to ANY animals? Sure they’ve banned it from cows, but, cows, chickens, pigs and sheep are all herbivores and here they’re feeding them meat! There is something terribly wrong with that concept! Chickens and pigs are still getting the meal, and then the rendered pieces of chickens and pigs are made into meal for cows…as there was no law against feeding chickens and pigs to cows! A very healthy circle, no? You can be sure that the food map has changed a great deal in the last couple of years and will change even more now. Who would have ever thought that eating just three mouthfuls of infected ground beef (claims have been made that steaks are not affected) could cause the dreaded disease. MacDonald's, with its venerable golden arches, is again reporting a huge drop in profits. It's enough to turn meat eaters in vegetarians... The symptoms in humans are cognitive and psychological, as well as sight, hearing, smell and muscle degeneration. The brain begins wasting away, and autopsies done in England showed brains that looked like Swiss cheese. The disease is fatal, as none of the people who’ve contracted it have survived…and it was even found to be hitting young people in their prime. The average age at the moment is 28. But it does seem to take many years to manifest any serious symptoms. Why our government officials are afraid of banning these substances in order to err on the side of safety is a mystery. They claim to have the problem under control, but the powers that be must be thinking of the bottom line (profit) for the large producers and multi-national companies who are their voters. Too bad it’s just money that talks these day. And too bad that things only change when there's a crisis. Isn't that what we call crisis management? Only the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Check next week for Part II. Back to the Writing Index