Sunday, May 27, 2012

Taiwan Group urges halt of U.S. beef imports due to 'L-type' mad cow disease

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