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January/February 2004
Mad Cow Roundup: BSE and the Food Chain

 

Last month’s discovery of the first confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in the U.S. wouldn’t have come as a big surprise to most Satya readers. A so-called “downer” cow was reportedly singled out by a USDA inspector in Washington state and tested for BSE, which is suspected of transmitting new variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease—a similar brain wasting disease—to humans.

“Downers,” or “nonambulatory disabled animals” as the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls them, cannot walk by themselves, because they are too injured or too ill, to their own slaughter (or as one Wyoming reporter described it, they can’t “stand or walk out of the food supply chain”). Some are aging animals, such as “spent” dairy cows. Sometimes downed animals are dragged or pushed by bulldozer or simply beaten until they drag themselves to the kill floor. More often, they are discarded in a pile of broken bodies—many still alive—and left eventually to be sold and rendered into human and nonhuman food.

The muddled responses from the USDA to last month’s BSE case left us scratching our heads, and wondering... Since this issue of Satya focuses on companion animals, we wanted to know how this relates to the flesh many of us serve our furry friends. Are there any safeguards to protect them from BSE, and did last month’s case change anything? We turned to a group of those in the know and offer a roundup of their answers.—C.C.

Michael Greger, M.D.
Michael Greger, M.D.
Brian Halweil
Brian Halweil
Gene and Lori Bauston
Gene and Lori Bauston

Michael Greger, M.D. is a physician and an authority on mad cow disease.

Brian Halweil
is a Senior Researcher and expert on food and agricultural issues at the Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org).

Gene Bauston is co-founder and president of Farm Sanctuary (www.farmsanctuary.org), and has been at the forefront of a long effort to change legislation to treat downed animals more humanely.

Why was that specific cow tested for BSE?

B.H. That cow was tested because it arrived at the slaughterhouse unable to walk, a so-called “downer” cow. It’s not clear whether it couldn’t walk because it was sick (with mad cow or some other illness) or because it was injured while birthing calves or during the arduous trip to the slaughterhouse.
M.G. The cow seemed to be suffering from a birthing injury (thanks to breeding methods that tend to ignore the welfare of farmed animals, many calves are oversized and can result in difficult births) which interfered with her ability to walk. She was seemingly picked at random as one of the 0.1 to one percent of “downer” cows tested for mad cow disease in the U.S. every year. It seemed to be a fluke she was picked up at all. Presumably if she hadn’t had a birthing injury, she would have been able to walk to slaughter and would not have been tested. How many other infected cows are currently ending up in school cafeterias and restaurants and kitchens? We won’t know until we follow Japan’s example and test every cow destined for human consumption.

Prior to last month’s USDA mandate, so-called “downed” animals were slaughtered for human consumption, correct?
G.B. Ironically, industry has often argued that using the meat from injured animals for human food poses no threat to human consumers because the animals are otherwise healthy.
M.G. Meat from downed animals was not allowed in the federal school lunch program (deemed too risky for schoolchildren but evidently not too risky for adults), but millions of pounds of their flesh entered into the rest of the human meat supply.

Is the slaughter of all downed animals now banned, or only downed cows?

M.G. Only cows. The industry estimates that hundreds of thousands of downer pigs, for example, too sick or crippled by injury to even walk, arrive at U.S. slaughterhouses every year. We know that pigs can be susceptible to BSE as well, so perhaps one’s “other white meat” should be tofu.
B.H. The USDA has now prohibited parts from downed cows for human consumption but not for use as feed for other animals, and other downed livestock (pigs, chickens, sheep) still make it into the food chain.

USDA regulations require that animals slaughtered for human food be alive at the time of slaughter. Is this not the case for animals killed for nonhuman consumption?
G.B. Animals who are not killed for human consumption do not need to arrive at the slaughterhouse alive.
M.G. Companion animals can be fed dead and diseased animals, which not only include farmed animals—roadkill is scraped up and taken to rendering plants as well as animals euthanized in animal shelters across the country.
B.H. Remember, from the perspective of the meat industry, it’s all edible protein, regardless of where it comes from or how sick the animal was at the moment of death.

Are there provisions for how long an animal may be dead before slaughtered?
M.G. Not sure.

Are downed animals also slaughtered for nonhuman consumption, like for pet food and farmed animal feed?

G.B. Downed and dead animals are used for animal food and other ‘rendered’ products. The ban would not have an impact on those practices. But, banning the use of downed cattle for human food removes the requirement that animals arrive at the slaughterhouse alive, so their use for pet food (instead of human food) would allow them to be killed before being transported.
M.G. They are now killed and sent to rendering plants where they end up as pig and chicken feed, pet food, or even products destined for human consumption, such as gelatin or tallow used in cosmetics. So buying “cruelty-free” cosmetics without animal products may be not only kinder, but safer as well.

Does the ban have any bearing on animals slaughtered for nonhuman consumption?
M.G. Only that now more potentially diseased tissues will be going into nonhuman animal feed.
B.H. No, the ban has no bearing on animals slaughtered for nonhuman consumption, which is one of the main problems or loopholes. Although farmers aren’t allowed to feed cow parts back to cows, they are still allowed to feed cow parts to pigs, chickens or other livestock; and waste from pigs, chickens and other livestock is still fed back to cows. So the agents that carry mad cow disease (and other illnesses) are still being circulated throughout the animal herds. In contrast, Europe has banned all feeding of animal parts (often called animal “protein”) back to animals.

Are there any restrictions on what animals or animal parts are rendered into pet food or animal feed?
M.G.
Not that I am aware of.
B.H. Not as far as I know.

Are there cat and/or dog versions of BSE or “wasting” disease? If so, have there been any cases of intra- or inter-species transmission through consumption?
M.G. Tragically, about a hundred cats in Britain died from feline spongiform encephalopathy, the cat version of mad cow, because they ate pet food containing infected cattle parts.

Has it been determined what infected animal parts can transfer BSE to humans?
B.H. As far as we understand, the most infectious parts of an animal are nervous system tissue, including the brain and spinal cord. There are small bits of nervous tissue in most body parts, including muscle and bones, and some scientists believe that any parts of an infected animal can transmit BSE—although with less likelihood—and that the odds of transmission go up if the animal is slaughtered or butchered in such a way as to spread nervous system tissue into the meat. For instance, cutting an animal in half with a powerful saw can embed bits of spinal cord into nearby flesh.
M.G. We do know that the deadly prions concentrate in the brain, spinal cord, eyes and guts of the animals, but we have evidence now that suggests that blood and even the muscle itself may be harboring the prions, so the best way to reduce one’s risk is to eschew meat altogether.

For more information on downers and legislation, visit www.nodowners.org. For periodic updates on mad cow, send a blank email to DrGregerMadCowUpdates-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

 


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