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Science Forum Index » Environment Forum » CU expert 'shocked' that meat processed
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| Aozotorp |
 Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2003 8:22 pm |
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http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2528879,00.html
CU expert 'shocked' that meat processed
By Todd Hartman and Owen S. Good, Rocky Mountain News
December 24, 2003
A leading Colorado authority on the human version of mad cow disease said
Tuesday he was "shocked" that meat from a sickened cow apparently made it into
the food supply.
Patrick Bosque, a neurologist at the University of Colorado Health Sciences
Center, was reacting to the news that a dairy cow in Washington state appears
to be the country's first case of mad cow disease.
Initial reports suggest officials knew the cow was a so-called "downer" animal
- those exhibiting symptoms of a neurological or other disease - but was still
slaughtered for its meat.
"They sent it to a processing plant - I couldn't believe it," Bosque said. "I
didn't know that was going on; I was shocked that they did it."
Agriculture and meat industry officials, including Colorado's secretary of
agriculture, say the practice is not uncommon. But to protect consumers,
potentially diseased parts of the animal - namely the brain and spinal tissue -
are removed, they say.
The remaining muscle tissue, the officials say, is perfectly safe - a point
echoed by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman at a news conference Tuesday.
But Bosque said there still are questions about eating the muscle tissue of a
cow infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
He pointed to his own research that showed the infectious agent, known as a
prion, can accumulate in the muscle tissue of mice, and a recent study showing
that people with a disease similar to mad cow also can accumulate prions in
muscle tissue.
In addition, prions are found in the lymph nodes of infected animals, Bosque
said, and lymph nodes can be found throughout the body, easily mixing into the
muscle tissue at a slaughterhouse.
A major component of Bosque's research has been chronic wasting disease, an
always-fatal brain sickness that infects deer and elk. Colorado has been at the
epicenter of CWD's spread.
One of Bosque's key interests: whether CWD can jump the species barrier and
infect cattle or humans. So far, there is some evidence such a leap might be
possible, but no proof it has occurred.
But Don Ament, Colorado's state commissioner of agriculture and a cattleman,
insisted that allowing meat from downer cows into the food supply is indeed
safe.
"We have found through the years that BSE doesn't show up in the muscle cuts of
beef or in milk," Ament said Tuesday. "Anything that a human would consume has
never been found to have a BSE agent in it. I'm 100 percent sure there's no
human health problem here."
While neurological tissue from healthy cows is a part of the food stream, Ament
said there is no risk of infected tissue being processed by mistake. Cows that
suffer from neurological disorders also exhibit obvious symptoms, he said.
"Right then, that means none of the infected tissue goes into the food chain,"
Ament said, even though the meat is processed before test results are
confirmed.
Introducing downer cows into the food chain has been controversial.
A lawsuit is being pushed by the New York-based animal rights group Farm
Sanctuary. It claims the Department of Agriculture is not doing enough to
protect consumers from mad cow disease that could be in the meat of downed
animals.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resurrected the 1998 lawsuit last week,
finding a lower court judge had wrongly dismissed the case. In dismissing the
case, the judge found the possibility of infection from mad cow disease in
America too remote to justify the suit.
The appeals panel disagreed. Most of the estimated 130,000 downed animals
brought to slaughterhouses every year are milk cows who are no longer
productive.
Ament considers it a certainty that Tuesday's news will mean consequences for
Colorado's beef industry, a $3 billion-a-year business.
It already has had repercussions for Washington state. Colorado immediately
banned the importation of cattle from Washington for the next 30 months.
Ten percent of the nation's total beef production is exported, said Mark
Thomas, vice president of global marketing for the National Cattlemens'ef
Association. Domestic demand would have to rise well above current record
levels to offset the effects of an outright, worldwide ban on American beef.
On Tuesday, Japan said it was halting shipments from the U.S. |
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