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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.



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Tombstone wrote: 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.