U.S. to Destroy 450 Calves in Mad Cow Probe

[DragonKnight]

U.S. to Destroy 450 Calves in Mad Cow Probe

By Randy Fabi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The month-old offspring of a Washington state dairy cow infected with mad cow disease will be destroyed along with about 450 other calves as a safety precaution, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday.

Killing the herd of bull calves is a measure intended to reassure consumers that the U.S. food supply is safe. The Bush administration is also trying to restore confidence among more than two dozen trading partners that halted some $3.2 billion in annual U.S. beef shipments after the deadly disease was found last month.

"We have made a decision to depopulate those bull calves sometime this week," USDA Chief Veterinarian Ron DeHaven told reporters. "Approximately 450 animals will be sacrificed."

USDA said that while it was known that the calf of the infected cow was in the herd, officials could not identify which animal was that offspring and so all the calves in the herd were to be destroyed.

The planned slaughter leaves at least 4,000 other cattle linked to the mad cow investigation still under quarantine.

The calves will be killed at an idle slaughter plant and samples of each will be saved in case scientists need to analyze them. No tests to detect the brain-wasting disease are planned at this time, DeHaven said.

"To test all of those brains would not be fruitful," he said. Scientists believe mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE (news - web sites)), needs at least three years to incubate and DeHaven said the herd was not old enough to show infection.

USDA officials noted there was only a remote chance that the infected cow transmitted the disease to its offspring...

Read the rest here. (http://tinyurl.com/2gytw)

[Faithless]

That ought to get the animal rights activists up in arms.

Do they have to be killed?

[bluemonq]

well, "depopulating the cattle herd" is pretty much the only way of guaranteeing that this doesn't get passed on. this is the least of PETAs worries, considering how much of the cattles' brethren we consume

[Martino]

That ought to get the animal rights activists up in arms.

Do they have to be killed?

If mad cow is in your cow population, this wont stop it. Our cow population was pretty much decimated. We're talking hundreds of thousands of 'at risk' cows, not just infected cows. It was the only way to be sure.

There was also massive restrictions on the movement of humans in the countryside.

[Faithless]

Such is the life of a cow. Raised to be eaten, else slaughtered if it aint right. Wonder what PETA thinks.

[myself808]

PETA - Is that People Eatng Tasty Animals :biggrin: I keed I keed

heres (http://www.peta.org/Automation/NewsItem.asp?id=3627) part of a PETA press release:
Rochester, Minn. ? Carrying signs reading, "It?s Mad to Eat Meat?Go Vegetarian," members of PETA will pass out "emergency vegetarian starter kits" in front of the Peace Plaza tomorrow, as well as at grocery stores and restaurants across the United States, in response to the news that a cow in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease:
Because the infected cow was raised for dairy production, she had lived long enough to show symptoms of the disease. Most cows, pigs, turkeys, and chickens, however, are killed before they turn 2 years old, and before they become symptomatic, so no one would know whether they were infected with the brain disease.

It?s possible that there is a mad chicken or mad pig disease, as any animal with a brain could potentially develop a variant of this disease, which could then be transferable to people. We?ve had mad sheep, mad mink, and mad deer disease in North America for years.

Vegetarian starter kits? mad chicken?
Scary no?

[Faithless]

I sent an email to PETA to ask what they thought of this potential slaughter of the 450 calves. Hope they respond.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

If mad cow is in your cow population, this wont stop it.

Right. In this case however the slaughtering of the 450 cows is only due to the fact that one of the 450 calves is the offspring of the first cow in the US to be 'found' to be infected with mad cow, but they don't know which one it is, so they chose to kill all of them just to be safe. The question of the prevalence or existence of mad cow in the US cow population is a different issue, although definitely related and not altogether separate. As for now the authorities are operating on the understanding so far that the infected cow (a faulty assumption from my perspective but until they test more and find otherwise there is nothing much else to work off of) is an isolated case (along with the risk presented by its calves and the members of its herd which so far are assumed to have come from Canada 2 years ago).

[Napoleon Chynamite]

http://beta.kpix.com/news/local/2004/01/05/20_Bay_Area_Restaurants%2C_Butchers_Hit_with_Beef_ Recall.html

http://beta.kpix.com/news/local/2004/01/05/20_Bay_Area_Restaurants%2C_Butchers_Hit_with_Beef_ Recall.html

Check out the above two links for side stories regarding the mad cow topic which specifically affect some in California but perhaps say more about the USDA. This kind of shit not only scares the crap out of me, but pisses me off royally. Refusing to disclose names of affected businesses in the name of 'cooperation' or 'proprietary reasons'? What kind of fucked up shit is that?? If the USDA was truly doing all they could to help and keep the public's safety as its number one priority, the business names would've been posted and made public information faster than shit on a stick. The USDA members who place their own greed and interests of the industry over the well-being of others are no better than those fuckers who work at certain chemical firms that knowingly expose residents to harmful chemicals which longterm and perhaps fatal consequences. And if 'proprietary reasons' was such a concern, then how come grocery store chains like Albertson's, WinCo, Fred Meyer, etc. made their recall public so much sooner than these 'Asian' markets? Furthermore, if all this recall was a 'precautionary measure' representing essentially 'no risk' to consumers, then how come the USDA is scrambling to find out the extent of this problem while assuring the public that the meat is safe to eat at the same time? We can only hope that in actuality the risk really is as small as they say it is, and that recalls were carried out in a half-assed manner because there is sincerely more of an interest in maintaining the industry instead of worrying about human livelihood (but I doubt it, highly). Call me paranoid or accuse me of overreacting, but the people who let harm pass through because they did a half-assed job deserve harsh and painful punishment.

[Faithless]

It should piss off a lot more people as well, rather them accepting the "proprietary reasons" bullshit.

There have been bigger scares with legal drugs and other food products that have not gotten the proprietary reasons treatment.

[amietron]

so, how many of you are saying no to beef now?

[teaz0r]

honestly, i dunno what the
big deal is. killing the animals.
besides losing money that
could be made from them.

i wonder if it's safe to skin
those baby cows and make
bags and shoes out of them.

[Faithless]

honestly, i dunno what the
big deal is. killing the animals.
besides losing money that
could be made from them.
Well, we aren't talking about inanimate (?) objects here. We're talking about living animals.

It's sad to see how desensitized we have become that livestock are nothing more than a commodity, an inventory item, like linen, that we think nothing of using and then just tossing away.

[Faithless]

so, how many of you are saying no to beef now?

I've said no to it, for the most part, for a while now -- even before this recent scare.

[Martino]

I've said no to it, for the most part, for a while now -- even before this recent scare.

Food is one of the main pleasures in this life, so I'll be saying yes to it for as long as I can chew.

[Faithless]

Food is one of the main pleasures in this life, so I'll be saying yes to it for as long as I can chew.

It's a pleasure until it --
* Gives you the squats,
* Farks up you teeth,
* Kills you.
:frown:

[Martino]

It's a pleasure until it --
* Gives you the squats,
* Farks up you teeth,
* Kills you.
:frown:

You're eating in all the wrong places.

EDIT: Squats ... is that the same as the squirts?

[Faithless]

EDIT: Squats ... is that the same as the squirts?
Yessum.

To me, food is more taste than what I'm eating.

There's a veggie Chinese Restaurant nearby that makes this dish called "vegitarian smoked goose". It's made from dried bean curd that has been smoked and then flavored with a Lee Kum Kee type of sauce. Delish!

[Faithless]

Oh, well, what's done is done:

USDA kills 450 calves linked to mad cow case (http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp?ccode=ENG4&newscode=36725)
WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) The U.S. Agriculture Department said it completed the killing of about 450 bull calves in Washington state that were linked to a dairy cow infected with mad cow disease.

Jim Rogers, spokesman for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the carcasses will be sent to a nearby landfill and buried.

Among the calves that were destroyed was a one-month-old bull born from a Holstein dairy cow infected with mad cow disease, the first case in the United States.

USDA officials said it was unlikely the infected cow gave the brain-wasting disease to its offspring. Even if it was transmitted, he said mad cow disease could not be found in the calf until it was at least 30 months of age.

All calves in the herd were destroyed because USDA officials said they were unable to pinpoint the infected cow's offspring with certainty.

The USDA leased a Washington slaughtering facility, not currently in operation, for the sole purpose of killing the 450 calves. Rogers said ''standard precautions'' would be taken to sanitize the slaughtering facility.

USDA would not disclose the location of the slaughtering facility nor the landfill because of privacy concerns.

With the killing of this herd, there remain at least 4,000 cattle under state quarantine.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Probably gonna get blasted from animal rights activists or people who object to the slaughtering of these cows, but yeah the killing of these 450 calves is insignificant compared to what we should be doing, which is testing every single cow after slaughter for entry into the human food supply and/or focusing on the tracking down of all the members of the herd that came from Canada with the one cow that was found to be infected in December (so far I think we've found 12 out of 81). The news is doing a good job of making a big deal out of the slaughtering of these 450 when the much bigger problem/risk in my opinion lies elsewhere. I hope it's not because they have run into problems, barriers, delays etc. and are just finding filler material to keep the public convinced.

[Martino]

Oh no, we have killer salmon now. Is nothing sacred?

[Martino]

Oh no, we have killer salmon now. Is nothing sacred?

To heck with it, I'm having salmon tonight, on a bed of rocket, with a little light seasoning ... yum.

[Martino]

To heck with it, I'm having salmon tonight, on a bed of rocket, with a little light seasoning ... yum.

Is it bad to reply to your own posts?

[Faithless]

Is it bad to reply to your own posts?

Not if you're Eve White.