USDA Rejects 'Downer' Cow Ban

Source: Washington Post

Agriculture Secretary Finds Existing Meat-Processing Rules Adequate



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022804117.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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A little downer cow hurts no one?

even if the price came down to where I could afford it

The meat supply is compromised until well into '09 at minimum.

I stopped eating it (along with all other mammals) well over a decade ago after that infamous Oprah show. I had one burger about five years into my beef ban and it felt like a salty, greasy brick in my stomach. Two days later there was another mad cow scare, and that sealed the deal for me-never again!

I don't miss it a bit. I stopped eating ham shortly after that. I have to admit I sometimes crave a hot ham and cheese sandwich, but I quickly get over it. Factory farming practices are out of control.

you can tell a lot about a society by the way they treat their animals.


:puke: :grr: :cry:

Red Cross! No more Vaca Loca for me!

With all the pet food recalls I don't know what's for dinner any more.

my dad had a collision with a deer one evening that killed the animal instantly (and totaled his car). The highway patrol officer on the scene moved the deer to the side of the road and called it into his precinct. Before the tow truck showed up a family pulled up to take away the deer. Apparently they have a program in Ohio where poorer families can sign up to take wild road kill in their communities for food. A wild animal rescue group here in Florida is part of a similar program; road kill is picked up to be fed to the predators at the sanctuary. Only one drawback; mad cow has been found in both deer and elk here in America...though I still think fresh road kill is safer for meat eaters than anything from a factory farm!

Wisconsin for example in 2002 was sending out warnings to its hunters about a 25% infection rate among deer and elk.

I hear that deboning is a snap, what with all those fractured bones - but how do you safely remove the glass shards?

I don't really miss it at all - except here in the Midwest it is kind of hard to be vegetarian.

I think I may actually be losing some weight which is a good thing.

My big problem is trying to figure out how to cook and not have to spend a fortune. Fresh fruits and vegetables are very expensive. But rice and noodles are cheap.

Beans and rice make a complete protein. Delicious with peppers and onions.

I don't really miss it at all - except here in the Midwest it is kind of hard to be vegetarian.

I think I may actually be losing some weight which is a good thing.

My big problem is trying to figure out how to cook and not have to spend a fortune. Fresh fruits and vegetables are very expensive. But rice and noodles are cheap.

I stopped eating cows and pigs 6 years ago (and I don't eat chicken either) -- purely for humanitarian reasons altho the environmental and health impacts provide enough reasons for me to go veg. I consider them icing on the cake. Lots of ethnic cuisines offer the yummiest veg dishes on the planet, and I wouldn't eat a cow now if you paid me.

After they discovered the first downer cow from Canada. I didn't believe a word Ann Vennamon said. ( Sect. of Ag at the time) ( And she turned out to be one of the croney elite )
A little before that time I had purchased a leg of lamb from NZ in Canada that was soooo good! Now we can't bring any meat AT ALL across the border............So we're stuck with the FDA's lax rulings,
OR I only eat bison! They feed on grass, won't eat that ground up meat stuff..or I use ground turkey, for meat loaf, meatballs etc..
"THEY" said nobody got sick from the meat they recalled ".....( school lunches etc.) but, unlike e-coli, it takes years for Jakob Kratzbergs disease to show up! The symptoms, Terry Scheivo like!

If so, I'm not eating it. Why would I want to eat a downer?

They get paid per live pig - if they're dead, they ain't worth shit. that's why they get injected with hormones and pep-drugs, which will all 'trickle down' into the foodchain. Great.

Let's see him scarfing some burgers made from one too weak to stand! What an ass hole. Ass hole - GOP - one in the same. :puke:

now he's an ass as Ag Secretary. He's a republican, what else could I have been expecting?

If more people that consume beef, pork, poultry, etc. would start finding local sources that they trust with treating the animals humanely and naturally, we could break the corporate masters backs. Hopefully, with a Democrat in the White House, appointments made to these positions will be filled with people that do their job FOR, OF, and BY the people not the corporate shills who grow fat and wealthy beyond their worth.

We have been buying local beef for years now, and the meat is far better than what you can buy in the stores. We also raise our own vegies, and put up vegies for the winter. Our carrots will last another month or so, and as soon as the local farmers market starts up, I buy from them until our crops are ready to eat. We also have access out our back door to organic grown cherries, pears, and several kinds of apples that my brother lin law grows, so we do pretty good.

Big corporations only care about the profit, and when our own government won't enforce stricter rules, they are catering to the lobby money from those big corporations that run things! I agree with you, if people found a local source for what they eat, it would really take a toll on those big corporations, and I am all for that!

for Mad Cow Burger.

from mad cow disease. They'll have their multimillion dollar mansions bought by beef industry bribes. They won't have to think of the suffering.

You know, it might already be too late for the majority of us. We might already be dead.

than a virus, and there is just an inkling of how they "work".

How did they come up w/something that can filter something out that occurs in th CNS, and usually winds up in things liked ground beef becuase there are often spinal "extracts" that contaminate the meat? The stuff is only in the blood until it gets to the Central Nervous System material.

And it can't remove it from someone's CNS. It can be used on transfusions, though.

IIRC it was posted here to DU.

I have to work, or I'd happily chase this down for you.

but there's no evidence we can remove prions from living organisms.

Maybe you've just got fat fingers, ever think of that?

:P

.. .. and animal welfare besides! NOT.

When I'm veg, I lose weight and feel somewhere between good and wonderful. When I stray from it (depression is what makes me lapse) I gain shit tons of weight and feel godawful.

The story of the massive beef recall was one of the two things that just made me change back to veg (and I hope for good this time). The other was that if I don't lose about half my body mass fucking YESTERDAY I may lose part of a limb.

I used to get the ones that Trader Joe's sold under their own brand name, but they lost their supplier so now I get either Boca Burgers or the ones from Morningstar Farms or Dr. Praeger. Tofurky products are some of the best stuff ever invented. :)

I use soy milk in everything, and really the only dairy I'll have is some cheese once in a while.

That most of the soybean crop is from GM soybeans!...............
You can't escape it turning veggan,,, they have to be stamped out & eradicated!

or research where their food is coming from.

According to Tofurky's website, they actively check their organic soybeans for GMO contamination. They do admit that some may slip through, but it's still far better than you'll find at a corporation like, say, Kraft Foods.

Actually, I was under the impression that the majority of GMO grains were grown for livestock feed, and not (direct) human consumption. Thus all those scares from time to time about GMO corn getting into the human food supply. No mention, of course, that even though the GMO is going through another system first (i.e., livestock) doesn't stop it from being GMO. You're still getting some of the possible effect of a GMO on your body through eating meat raised on GMO grains. You likely have more to worry about from downer cows than the GMOs, though.

My biggest concern with GMOs is that they contaminate other species of the same plant families. We're basically permanently polluting the plant genetics of the planet with these things and none of the corporate types seem to care one iota.

Lots of estrogens in it. Very bad if you have an underactive thyroid as well.

The Humane Society of the United States Sues to Keep Sick and Injured Cows Out of Food Supply

USDA Loophole Contributed to the Largest Beef Recall in U.S. History

The Humane Society of the United States today filed suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to close a dangerous loophole in the agency's regulations that contributed to the recent recall of more than 143 million pounds of beef—much of which was fed to schoolchildren in at least 40 states and the District of Columbia. The recall was initiated after an HSUS investigation documented shocking acts of animal cruelty to non-ambulatory or "downer" cattle at a slaughterhouse in Chino, Calif.

"USDA has in recent weeks assured the public that sick and crippled cattle are not allowed to enter the food supply, but the agency's regulations actually contradict that assertion," said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States. "Unless we want yet another dramatic food scare—further eroding consumer confidence in beef and costing the private sector and the federal government tens of millions of dollars—we should not hesitate to close this legal loophole and establish an unambiguous no-downer policy that will also help protect crippled animals from egregious abuse."

On Thursday, Pacelle is scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee examining the issues surrounding the case. He will call on Congress to pass legislation to strengthen the nation's farm animal welfare laws.

Because downer cattle are at a heightened risk for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease") and other foodborne pathogens, USDA issued an emergency rule in 2004 to prevent downed cattle from being slaughtered for human consumption. However, in 2007, the agency quietly reversed course and relaxed its rules to permit some crippled cows to be slaughtered for human consumption.

http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/hsus_files_suit_against_usda_022708.html

imprisoned and forced to eat downer cows.

I stopped eating beef several years ago, after Mad Cow, and having a dearly loved pet brahma steer--who incidently, died from another bovine disease (Johne's) that is rampant in the industry, but gets no publicity. It has been linked with human Crohn's disease.

However, what to feed my dogs? I started cooking for them after the Chinese mayhem of the past year. We have 4. I started with chicken, but it's not very cost effective in mass quantities. I now feed cow hearts, kidneys, livers, and tripe, mixed with fresh veges and pasta for dinner. Breakfast is chicken gizzards with eggs, oatmeal, and cheese.

I actually searched for the same stuff from sheep, but couldn't find it anywhere close. They get Johne's Disease as well though...........

Does mad cow cross those two species? If it takes 20 years before mad cow sets in the brain, wouldn't the pets be long gone?

sort of tit-for-tat, ya know.......

:evilgrin:

Why do you think Bush won't allow mad cow inspections? We're all being poisoned. They don't care.

I know flvegan has his on a commercial vegetarian diet, but I always forget which one it is he feeds. I can say his dogs are quite healthy- nice coats, etc.

with this attitude

I have cut down my meat to almost nil and if I do it it is sirloin

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content.asp?contentid=201367

Beef: Exports of 7,300 MT were mainly to Mexico (4,200 MT), Canada (1,100 MT), Japan (600 MT), Vietnam (500 MT), and Taiwan (400 MT).


I don't see there being any chance of Mexico dictating import terms or banning US beef imports altogether.

Which is why the USDA gets away with garbage such as this.

There are good resources at HealthyHighways.com

I hadn't heard of HealthyHighways.com but will look it up :)

I usually go to veggieboards.com or vegweb.com.

Our corporate-socialist (fascism?) policies dictate a lawsuit because in our "free market", competition against large corporations from small businesses is considered illegal. Funny how the "free market/globalism" apologists are so silent at the active role a federal agency is taking - suing a business for innovating!! LOL

to mad cow disease.

success of Democratic Congress in redressing the balance: Also 0 . . .

anyone else sense a disturbing trend here? . . .

:sarcasm:

start looking for BSFE. It is a Cardinal Sign...and now, for a few extra dollars profit, they will endanger countless Americas to to the possibility of eating contaminated beef, and possibly dooming some of them to a horrendous death.

I hate the people in this administration, they are murderers, plain and simple.

The one thing we as consumers can do, is just stop eating beef, kill the market, before it kills some of us.

BOYCOTT BEEF. NOW. And tell producers and retailers why.

Organic producers excepted, of course, as are producers of grass-fed beef.

I would think that restaurants and fast food joints would be against the possibility of downer cow meat being in their products. If someone gets sick from their food, they get sued, not the source of the meat.

But I agree about going grass fed, organic and/or local if you can. But just so you know, some US beef is bad, but ALL of the pork is not so good. I work for a natural/organic grocery chain and we get all of our fresh & frozen pork from Canada. It's the only pork that meets our quality and humane treatment standards.

...want to "speak up" would be because of their profit margins.

A few years ago, when I was driving a truck, I was dispatched to, if not that particular 'feed lot', then another in Central California, just like it. I was surprised to discover my load was going to Calgary (heart of the Canadian beef industry) to a cold storage warehouse.

When I got there I found out the beef was consigned by one of a couple of discount steakhouses still surviving in Canada.

T-bones for $1.99.....????


.

at least according to my diet. FUCK THAT! Sucks, because I love beef.

No more beef at my house.:puke:

What a crock of crapola this is. I hope that this ruling shows them for what they are..and how
much they really care about the population of this country

years ago....we almost never eat beef

it's very unhealthy under the best of circumstances

Where it comes from, what goes into it. I highly recommend that you go down to your local farmers' market and find somebody who raises organic beef. If you can't find somebody there, look in the smaller rural newspapers where farmers advertise that they're selling beef in bulk. Get out into the country, get to know these people, how they raise their cattle, how they run their operation. You also my check into a CSA service that raises beef. But as we see more and more of this problem emerge, it becomes more imperative that we find out where our food comes from.

What a difference in taste and the chicken meat is so WHITE compared with the agro-business chicken.
Unfortunately our farmer's market is closed during the winter.
Can't wait til it starts again.

Ostrich meat is very good too...

Most of our regulatory agencies are nothing more than cheerleaders for the industries they claim to police.

In June 2001 Bush installed Ann- Marie Lynch, a lobbyist for the drug- company trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, to help set those policies (for Health and Human Services).

As a lobbyist, Lynch fought congressional attempts to cap prices for drugs. Price controls, she argued, would hamper medical innovation.

**

Thomas A. Scully represented the nation's for-profit hospitals as a lobbyist before being hired by the Bush administration in June 2001 to head the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

**

Daniel E. Troy was well-known at the FDA before he arrived in summer 2001 to work as chief counsel, the top legal position in the department.

As a lawyer in private practice, Troy repeatedly sued the FDA, arguing that it had only limited ability to regulate drug companies. He filed those suits through the Washington Legal Foundation, a group funded by businesses, including drug companies. Donors include charitable foundations run by Pfizer Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and Eli Lilly & Co.

**

As a USDA official, (Charles Lambert) the former lobbyist for the meat industry who opposed labeling told a hearing that mad cow disease was not a threat.

**

Bush named J. Steven Griles, a veteran energy industry lobbyist, as the department's (EPA) second-highest official in June 2001.

Griles earned $585,000 a year as a lobbyist, representing an array of oil, gas and other energy interests. As Interior's deputy secretary, he continues to receive $284,000 a year for four years to pay him for the value he had created for the firm by bringing in clients.

<http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2004-05-24-DenverPost-advocates-regulators.htm>

and we just don't care

Now I'll have to start getting other meats.

many cows are already infected with "Mad Cow" but just not yet showing symptoms ---

Many other smaller animals --- pigs, sheep, goats are killed earlier in their lives and
symptoms do not have a chance to appear.

Assholes

nervous system starts going haywire, then you die.

Husband now believes me that the meat supply isn't safe and only eats trusted local beef or organic beef. After much argument, our sons are being raised vegetarian too.

Luckily enough my parents were Seven Day Adventists so I was just never around it growing up. It makes me ill to even walk by it in the grocery and avoid it at all costs. I can smell the stench of dead animal as soon as I enter my market and I would certainly never think of ingesting it into my system. I'm sorry it took such a horrific video to get some consumers attention, but maybe this will help some of the Americans that think they have to have these cancer causing foods in their diet, to think a little more about it.

You've never eaten meat at all from any animal - ever in your 62 years?

You must be unique ;-)

That is beyond my experice of 57 years and eating meat/fish/seafood at just about every meal.

Healthy eating to you!

I see so many families around me fighting obesity and heart problems, I just can't even grasp the concept of continuing to put cancerous foods in my mouth. We have to breath such filth day in and day out, why eat more filth unnecessarily? My daughter's family are all BIG meat eaters -- there's not a meal goes by without some kind of animal product. They don't seem to make the connection between their huge bellies and their high blood pressure (not to mention diabetes) and that big blob of meat going down their throat every meal.

If they have nothing to hide, they shouldn't mind the cameras.
That's what we were told about the warrentless wiretapping.

Oh well......

"The penalties are strong and swift, as we have shown," Schafer said. "Financially, I don't see how this company can survive. People need to be responsible and, from USDA's standpoint, they will be held responsible. . . . They broke the rules. That does not mean the rules are wrong. I believe the rules are adequate."

When it took undercover non-governmental investigators to expose this shit???? That's the ONLY reason this is even out there! Obviously the penalties weren't enough! This has nothing to do with Republicans- the Democrats have no interest in exposing this either- it's been going on for decades when factory farms came into being. If nothing else it's gotten worse. Of course, if you're stupid enough to eat the cooked muscle tissue of any dead animal, when there are plenty of vegans who have proven that humans don't need to eat it to live, you deserve whatever ails- or kills- you...

find out "why they missed the inhumane treatment" on these animals by their inspection staff?

Any idiot. even the one in the white house can tell you why and how they missed it.

They didn't want to see it, so they don't inspect enough, don't have enough resources, are forbidden to ask for more resources by their higher ups (much like the testimony from the toy standard inspection testimony regarding lead in toys), and don't use correctly the resources that they do have.

You don't need to be Colombo or Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.

...Mr. Schafer ought to be ashamed. I hope someone - when he's sick, old, and weak, prods HIM with electric shocks and uses high-intensity water spray to wash HIM down the gutter or into a goddamned woodchipper.

If it's good enough for a sick cow, it's good enough for him.

THEN there are the health issues of humans eating their meat.

Yeah, I've been thinking of going vegetarian. These days, most livestock "farms" are factories andmajor pollutors. Fuck em

Rotting on the ground where the republicon administration let it fall, and will soon scrape it up for school lunch hamburgers...

By my pen pal: Bjorn-Magne Stuestol from beautiful Norway.

http://www.shagrat.net/index.html

The U.S used a lot of beef to places like Japan, before we had a cow with mad cow disease. And then another. They have been waiting for us to get our act together before they allow us to start exporting to them again. But if the slaughter houses have their way, and they are allowed to keep selling meat from cows with mad cow disease in secret, these countries will never allow US cattle owners to ship their products out of country, which will keep US beef prices nice and low for the middle men in this country.

http://calag.ucop.edu/0504OND/resupd.html

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41AX01QEMCL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg

How the Cows Turned Mad: Unlocking the Mysteries of Mad Cow Disease

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Two and a half centuries ago, sheep in England started trying to scrape their wool off; in France, to shake uncontrollably. The Brits dubbed their phenomenon scrapie; the French called theirs tremblant. Between then and now, similar conditions in cows and humans were discovered and assigned the group name transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs): diseases that fill the brain with holes as in a sponge and spread from one organism to another. Their cause eluded researchers until quite recently. SOP since Pasteur sought an invasive bacterium or virus with increasingly powerful tools, which TSE agents eluded. Eventually, evidence pointed to a genetic cause involving transformation of a normal into a deviant gene by another deviant gene introduced orally into the affected organism. You had to eat something from a sick organism to become sick, and once that became popular knowledge after the concurrence of human and bovine TSE cases in England in the 1990s, there was a panic. That reaction seems unjustified; according to Schwartz, TSEs will continue to be a very minor cause of human death. Meanwhile, there may be much to learn from TSE research about such symptomatically similar illnesses as Alzheimer's disease. Writing with immense concentration and clarity, French molecular biologist Schwartz makes the long hunt for the unexpected culprit gene utterly engrossing. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

amazon.com

Just because "no one has gotten sick" as they claim is false reassurance. Mad cow takes years to develop. It is almost certainly in our food chain now.

Turning vegetarian is one option.

Eating only organic beef is the next best choice, because organic cattle by law cannot be fed animal parts and must be slaughtered in separate facilities, so there is little if any risk.

Muscle cuts (steak, roasts) are safer than ground meats.

Any ground meat or items such as sausage or hot dogs can include meat scrapped off the bone with bits of spinal cord inside and carry a very high risk of contamination if the cow had mad cow disease.

I personally will not eat any ground cuts unless the beef is organic, and I will not eat hotdogs or sausage unless it's turkey dogs.

pepperoni, kielbasa and all other sausages containing beef. I have been doing this ever since the first mad cow case in the US, even though my family thinks I'm crazy. Will occasionally eat some muscle cuts (and have ground our own beef using a chuck roast once or twice), but now I'm questioning the wisdom of doing that, unless, perhaps, it's certified organic...

We here in Canada have JUST had a ban lifted from Mexico over a single mad cow episode about 4 years ago.

And Japan just lifted a ban a few years ago.

And I've heard that there HAVE been mad cow occurrences in the US but they've been covered up.

Now with this news, I'd be surprised if anyone in the industry could cosider their beef safe.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it - get the money OUT of politics, or you're finished.

yum how about some splattered possum, skunk, or deer. Lets see under Bush our food supply has steadily declines to where none is safe. I guess the Republican small government, too many regulations, & laws regulating business is only good for business.

I knew he was a toadie years ago.
It is just common sense to ban downer cattle from the food chain. I'm wondering when mad cow will start surfacing enough in this country that the government won't be able to cover it up any longer?

Ed Schafer, for you the party line has to come first. You are a poor excuse for a North Dakotan. I am so embarrassed and ashamed.

I am quite ready to go vegan. It appeals to me more each day and with each news story that the regulations are not being followed. So many failures for this administration.

In my opinion this is another one of *Bushco's demonstrations of what they want the people to see. That federalized programs are to be demeaned fits right into the plan to do away with them altogether.

Think of the many ways this administration has shown the people that the federal programs can't be trusted to work for them. Katrina certainly left many, many people in the lurch and this administration just watched it go by - it fit into their play book - demonstrate that a federal program doesn't work for the people.I am sure you can list more of the same.

especially the meat. Trust me you have not had a good steak until you have had a locally fed cow.

I got one of the phone calls, the automated call from the school district, saying that 'we have confirmed that your child's school is one of the ones that received some of the suspect beef, but there is no evidence "whatsoever" that this has caused any harm.'

Personally I don't eat meat, but we aren't raising him vegetarian, and he eats the school lunches.
Guess we will have to start packing them.

This is outrageous!