12th Japan Mad Cow This Year

[Tombstone]

What do you all think of this? What are you doing about it? We've cut back on beef about two years ago. We are now looking at buying our beef in bulk from local cattle grown naturally and fed on the prairies around here by local farmers.

Thoughts?

The Globe And Mail
9-15-4

TOKYO - Japan confirms 12th case of mad cow disease (AP) - Japan has confirmed a 12th case of mad cow disease, an official said Monday - the third case of the brain-wasting illness in the country this year.

The five-year-old dairy cow tested positive for the disease formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, on Friday at a slaughterhouse in Shisui town in southern Kumamoto prefecture, spokesman official Toshinori Takano said.

More precise tests at a state-run infectious disease research institute confirmed the finding on Monday, Mr. Takano said.

The animal's meat and organs had not gone on the market, and its carcass will be incinerated, he said.

Japan's first case of mad cow disease - in September 2001 - was the first case outside of Europe, where it devastated cattle farms.

Within months of that case, the government banned the use of meat-and-bone meal - made from ruminant animal parts - in cattle feed, which authorities believe led to the outbreak.

The country's most recent confirmed case was in March.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2
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[Colinc]

I live in Cumbria in the UK. It was around here that the mad cow epidemic started ...what seems like a long time ago.
It is difficult to convey the true horror of those awful days.
The endless slaughter of animals...the burning pyres...literally dead animals piled on top of each other and covered in oil to burn.
The smell that covered the land.

Looking back what can we say with hindsight?
The government panicked...they were not ready and ended up killing everything.
Some people made a fortune...the courts are still being kept busy with contractors who were not fully paid as they over charged.
Official investigation...no...all covered up.


Health problems...you bet. Over the next few years i am sure that a lot more will come out showing that this is still with us..and not just in the UK

I have heard of links to Alzheimers....so now ..if we eat meat at all...we try and buy from local butchers who use local livestock which were properly reared.

Just my opinion...but can you judge if you did not live through it?

[Bill Sikes]

Originally Posted by Tombstone

What do you all think of this? What are you doing
about it? We've cut back on beef about two years ago. We are now
looking at buying our beef in bulk from local cattle grown naturally and
fed on the prairies around here by local farmers.

Thoughts?

Buy your beef from Great Britian, which has now probably got the most
highly regulated, tested, and inspected meat in the world. Many other
places have "mad cow disease", but may hide it, so inspection and
detection is likely to be far less effective.

However, the above solution is not as ecologically sound as buying
locally produced meat (and preferably where you can guarantee the
stock has not been fed unnatural (to the stock) substances. Buying
locally should be a good deal cheaper, too, if buy purchasing in bulk
you can get a wholesale rate.

Note that other species, notably sheep, suffer from spongiform
encephalopathy, and have done for a couple of hundred years.
There is no evidence to show that this has been transmitted to
humans. Evidence for the transmission of BSE to humans is
tenuous.