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Mad Cow Disease Confirmed In California

Posted by Soulskill on from the denny-crane dept.

New submitter wave9x writes "The United States Department of Agriculture confirmed today that the nation's fourth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, sometimes referred to as 'mad cow disease' was found in a dairy cow in California. The animal has been euthanized and the carcass is being being held under State authority at a rendering facility in California and will be destroyed."

37 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. All your BSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    are belong to us!

  2. American Culture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is completely telling that news of this appeared in the Business Section (currently the second hit on Google News) before it appeared at all in the Health Section.

    1. Re:American Culture by poity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe because the irrational fear that surrounds something with a transmission rate of 1 out of millions can affect the market far more so than actual health of the population at large. If this tells us anything at all (which I doubt) it would be something about the emotional factor in futures trading.

      --
      your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
    2. Re:American Culture by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As markets shut their doors to US beef, the disease is far more likely to affect your 401k than your brain.

    3. Re:American Culture by dr_dank · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's definitely telling... telling that you didn't see the disclaimer on the bottom of the Google News page:

      The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    4. Re:American Culture by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Informative

      Indeed. Four cases of a disease in cows (in the US), with three humans infected is indeed extremely threatening. Never mind the UK had an actual epidemic, with over 180,000 cases in cows, and still only had 176 people infected (from Wikipedia). In my mind, that makes BSE less dangerous than... well, just about everything. Hell, there have only been 280 reported cases of infected humans from BSE, ever. Tell me again why people should be scared? Yes, health officials should be careful: damned careful. The average person? Don't worry about it.

      No one said nothing should be done. They did what needed to be done: euthanized the cow and dispose of the corpse properly.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    5. Re:American Culture by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course, we are just starting to look for it.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    6. Re:American Culture by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually the odds are better that you kid will be killed by a car (77 to 1), drowning in a bathtub ( 685,000 to 1 ) slipping and killing himself/herself in the shower (2,232 to 1) even being struck by lightning (576,000 to 1 ) hell they even have better odds of dating a supermodel (88,000 to 1) or striking it rich on antiques roadshow ( 60,000 to 1). Here is the source so I'd say out of ALL the things we parents ACTUALLY have to worry about BSE is pretty damned low on the list. Not saying that can't change, not saying we shouldn't do our best to protect the food supply, just saying panicking is probably pretty unwarranted ATM.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    7. Re:American Culture by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is: 1) Cows SHOULD NOT even get infected. That means that cows are fed lightly processed cow meat. 2) BSE is a disease with very long incubation period. If BSE infected food supply then we can start getting many new infections. 3) BSE is incurable and always leads to death.

    8. Re:American Culture by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Funny

      Quit poisoning the debate with facts.

    9. Re:American Culture by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 5, Informative

      It doesn't mean that the cow are fed cow meat at all. The prion that cause BSE can be created naturally through mutation, and then reproduce. This kind of mutation happens very occasionally, but it does happen often enough that we have seen it happen several times. This is believed to be such a case; to quote the Associated Press coverage:

      Clifford said the California cow is what scientists call an atypical case of BSE, meaning that it didn't get the disease from eating infected cattle feed, which is important.

      That means it's "just a random mutation that can happen every once in a great while in an animal," said Bruce Akey, director of the New York State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell University.

      Eivind.

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
    10. Re:American Culture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually the odds of being killed by flu was enormously lower in 1917 than in 1918: "The unusually severe disease killed up to 20% of those infected, as opposed to the usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%" [Wikipedia]. If you were in the 20-40 age range the spike was even larger.

      That's why brain-fitted humans are slightly more nervous about infectious diseases than shower slipping: unless the "One Lamborghini Per Child" program is implemented, illnesses have a far greater potential of quickly changing their odds of terminating your life than the other causes of death you cited.

    11. Re:American Culture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      BSE is poorly tested for in the USA (regulations not adhered to or relaxed) , this is why many US beef products are/were unwelcome in Japan.
      Human infection is understated, symptoms and diagnosis can take 10 years to manifest. There are postmortem studies performed in the 90's that indicate over 25% of diagnosed dementia and Alzheimer's victims were actually BSE infected individuals.

      These studies were not widely distributed and testing has been allowed to become relaxed for purely economic reasons. ... See the UK incidence.

    12. Re:American Culture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Your referenced source says "Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1," which you paraphrased as "you kid will be killed by a car (77 to 1)."

      And there is obviously something wrong with this one, since your chances of dying next year aren't even 77 to 1. Perhaps they meant the chance that, if you die next year, you will die in any sort of transportation accident is 77 to 1.

      Or maybe they just made it up, since your referenced source has no referenced sources.

    13. Re:American Culture by davester666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You mean "of course, we are just starting to appear to look for it".

      The industry has actively resisted increasing testing for BSE for two reasons:
      1) it costs money
      2) it finds cows with BSE

      Of course, the USDA has required insanely higher levels of testing for cows/beef from Canada.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    14. Re:American Culture by xenobyte · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of course, the USDA has required insanely higher levels of testing for cows/beef from Canada.

      Of coruse! - It's Canada! - We all know they're planning to invade the US and it would make their invasion much easier if everybody had CJD (the human variant of BSE, possibly caused by eating BSE-infected meat), right? - So remain vigilant when it comes to those pesky Canadians! :)

      --
      "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
    15. Re:American Culture by xenobyte · · Score: 5, Informative

      BSE is poorly tested for in the USA (regulations not adhered to or relaxed) , this is why many US beef products are/were unwelcome in Japan.
      Human infection is understated, symptoms and diagnosis can take 10 years to manifest. There are postmortem studies performed in the 90's that indicate over 25% of diagnosed dementia and Alzheimer's victims were actually BSE infected individuals.

      These studies were not widely distributed and testing has been allowed to become relaxed for purely economic reasons. ... See the UK incidence.

      Humans don't get BSE (Hint: The 'B' stands for 'Bovine') - they get Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD). They're both prion diseases but the actual prion involved differs. It is believed that BSE prions from food can trigger invalid folding of the CJD prion in humans and thus CJD but the details are not completely understood. Both BSE and CJD can also be triggered through genetic defects, either hereditary or through mutations.

      --
      "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
    16. Re:American Culture by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, but after the ride you guys gave other countries after outbreaks of BSE, you deserve it this time.

    17. Re:American Culture by robthebloke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In my mind, that makes BSE less dangerous than... well, just about everything.

      Yes, but what you are failing to understand is that whilst there may have been 180,000 cows who caught the disease, that is a small drop in the ocean compared to the number of animals who were put down to prevent any possibility of transmission. After the disease devastated the export market for British beef, it devastated the beef industry as a whole, and put countless farmers out of business (with numerous reports of farmers taking their own lives). It took decades for the industry to recover. It's a hideous disease.

  3. Good news bad news by poity · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least we can look forward to cheaper steaks for a while

    --
    your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
  4. No wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'll just leave this here.

  5. Mad cows come from California by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    As a Wisconsinite who always snickers a little when I see one of those moronic "Happy Cows come from California" commercials on TV, I'll probably tear something from laughter the next time I see one. Cheese is part of our holy trinity: Beer, the Packers, and Cheese. Californian dairies probably aren't aware of the fact that a cow udder with one teat ain't an udder.

  6. Cods Whallap! by Mr0bvious · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So we only have an estimated population of around 7 billion people, yet as of November 2006 there were 200 individuals worldwide diagnosed with mad cow disease, including 164 people in the United Kingdom, 21 in France, 4 in the Republic of Ireland, the 3 in the US, 2 in the Netherlands, and 1 each in Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and Spain, according to the CDC. Of these individuals, most (170) had lived in the UK for over 6 months during the years 1980-1996; 20 others had lived in France during that time. [taken from: http://rarediseases.about.com/od/rarediseases1/a/vcjd.htm ]

    So using CDC math we should only have a 0.7 reported cases........

    --
    Never happened. True story.
    1. Re:Cods Whallap! by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, using improperly-applied statistics we have 0.7 cases.

      Now consider that the CDC statistic likely refers to the per-exposure chance. 200 people worldwide with the disease, a one in 10 billion is about 2 trillion exposures, which works out to about only needing 285 exposures per person since 1980. I've personally been exposed to risky meat more than that.

      I am not an epidemiologist, though, and I'd wager that your and GP aren't, either.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  7. Don't eat T-Bones by sandytaru · · Score: 5, Informative

    Prions are primarily present in nerve tissue. The major concentration of nerve tissue is in cuts of meat like the T-Bone, which by their nature may still have traces of the spinal cord. Stick with cheaper, lesser cuts of meat (that aren't pink slime...) such as chuck, shank, and brisket, and you'll be fine.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    1. Re:Don't eat T-Bones by Lil'wombat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Absolutely. A random test of a cow supposedly not destined for the food supply gets tested positive. And we are to believe everything else is OK? I think a new guy on the job didn't get the memo and tested the wrong cow. Lets see how quickly they expand the testing. All QC policies I've worked under, allowed for decreased sampling until a defect was found, then a full statistically sample had to be pulled and tested.

      --

      Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another

  8. Private BSE Testing by PPH · · Score: 5, Informative

    There was a suggestion to do private testing for BSE by individual ranchers the last time there was an 'outbreak'. The idea was to market their product as having been tested. But that was banned by the USDA.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  9. Re:Whew... by crutchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    duh!

    obviously they have tested 10 billion people

  10. Re:Whew... by No,+I+am+Spratacus! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, perhaps the American Red Cross will now allow people from Europe or who have lived in Europe to donate blood.

    As of now, people who have "spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time of 5 years or more from January 1, 1980, to present, in any combination of country(ies) in Europe" are ineligible to donate; the time is even shorter (3 months) for the UK, all because of mad cow paranoia.

  11. Natural case, not transmitted through feed by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you RTFA, it points out:
    1. This cow was never going to be sold for meat.
    2. This was a single point case of BSE; it wasn't the result of a transmission vector like contaminated feed, it just arose naturally (like prion diseases do in most mammals on rare occasions)

    Ever since we stopped feeding ground up cow parts to other cows, the rate of BSE has dropped to near zero; it's only when cow engage in cannibalism that the disease spreads to enough cattle to produce a measurable risk to any human.

    --
    $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
  12. Re:Dang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How long before I go completely vegetarian?

    Enjoy dying horribly from contaminated spinach, tomatoes, lettuce, et cetera.

    If eating is going to kill me, I choose to die by the steak.

  13. Re:In California ?!?! by lennier1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The infection attacks the brain. It's been decades since one of those was anywhere near D.C.

  14. Re:In California ?!?! by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have no mod points but I feel you should be modded insightful and not as funny. It's too sadly, tragically true to be funny.

  15. Re:Fault: Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If that were actually the real policy, then there would never be any outbreaks. The disease only transfers by eating brains and nerves. The cows can only catch it if the farmers are feeding their cows brains and nerves. From sick cows. Which is pretty disgusting considering they are herbivores.

    Um, you do realize that this is exactly what they do, right? The remains from slaughtered animals are processed and put back into animal feed.

  16. Re:Dang by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, it's definitely prions. They were identified as an infectious agents and were even shown to evolve (!!!) resistance to experimental anti-prion drugs. http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/12/evolution_without_genes_-_prions_can_evolve_and_adapt_too.php

  17. Re:In California ?!?! by tbird81 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I had points, but I posted this comment and lost them.

  18. Re:In California ?!?! by dintech · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I had mod points and all I have to show for it are these lousy comments"