Taiwan Group urges halt of U.S. beef imports due to 'L-type' mad cow
disease
2012/05/27 18:11:07 Taipei, May 27
(CNA) The Consumers' Foundation called Sunday for a halt to imports of U.S.
beef following a report by an American consumer group that a recent U.S. mad cow
disease case was an "L-type" atypical strain, which it said can be transmitted
to humans.
What irks many scientists is the USDA’s April 25 statement that the rare
disease is “not generally associated with an animal consuming infected
feed.”
The USDA’s conclusion is a “gross oversimplification,” said Dr. Paul Brown,
one of the world’s experts on this type of disease who retired recently from the
National Institutes of Health.
"(The agency) has no foundation on which to base that statement.”
“We can’t say it’s not feed related,” agreed Dr. Linda Detwiler, an
official with the USDA during the Clinton Administration now at Mississippi
State. In the May 1 email to me, USDA’s Cole backed off a bit. “No one knows the
origins of atypical cases of BSE,” she said
Few scientists would argue that the one California cow which never was
headed to the U.S. food supply represents a health hazard.
But many maintain that the current surveillance is insufficient.
Dr. Kurt Giles, an expert in neurogenerative diseases now at the University
of California, San Francisco, was at Oxford during the British outbreak.
He told me USDA’s assurances about safety today remind him of British
statements during the 1980s.
“It is so reminiscent of that absolute certainty,” he said.
Robert Bazell is NBC's chief science and medical correspondent. Follow him
on Facebook and on Twitter @RobertBazellNBC
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Are USDA assurances on mad cow case 'gross oversimplification'?
Friday, May 25, 2012
R-CALF USDA’s New BSE Rule Eliminates Important Protections Needed to
Prevent BSE Spread
in the url that follows, I have posted SRM breaches first, as late as 2011.
NEXT
MAD COW FEED BAN BREACHES AND TONNAGES OF MAD COW FEED IN COMMERCE up until
2007, when they ceased posting them.
NEXT
MAD COW SURVEILLANCE BREACHES.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Update from APHIS Regarding a Detection of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(BSE) in the United States Friday May 18, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
CANADA PLANS TO IMPRISON ANYONE SPEAKING
ABOUT MAD COW or ANY OTHER DISEASE OUTBREAK, CENSORSHIP IS A TERRIBLE
THING
