[DavidG]

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
MHO.. We had a 'single' case of mad cow Last year and caught it really fast. The US had a 'single' case very recently, and they caught it very fast.

It seems to me, there is no real reason to panic and the beef in both Canada and the US is Safe.

I for one am not paranoid and would feel perfectly safe eating a nice juicy steak from either Canada or the US.

Here's a question, If we discover a new way to detect a desease that we otherwise would not be able to detect, does that mean that the desease did not exist prior to our being able to detect it? For all we know we have been eating 'mad cows' since the early days of settlement. What I never hear is 'just what happens to a human that eats 'mad cow' infected beef?' Do we go mad? is it diarea for a week? do men spontaniously become pregnant? What is the 'real danger' I would like to know how this really affects us.

Does anyone here know the 'effects, side-effects' of eating 'mad-cow' infected beef?

nuf said, Cheers!

Well if you eat BSE infected meat you have an extremely slim chance (slightly less extremely slim than if you eat the brain or spinal cord) of contracting vCJD, a nasty brain wasting disease similar to BSE. (hence the name 'mad' cow disease) It is 100% fatal, I believe within a year. How slim a chance? Well consider that in the UK they have had 130 cases of vCJD and it is estimated that 2,000,000 BSE infected cattle went to market. In NA there are 2 confirmed cases of vCJD. One in Canada and one in the US. This in itself should prove our beef is safe.

but hey let's have some more proof. Apaprently even in cattle with full symptoms the BSE agent is not found in the beef.

And some more. Most cattle go to slaughter before the age of 30 months. BSE is very rarely found in cattle less the 30 months old. (ie in the EU 8.5 million cattle tested in 2001, found 2147 case of BSE and only 2 in cattle under 30 months and they were 28 and 29 months old, In 2002 10.2 million cattle were tested and no cases found in animals under the age of 30 months)

And even more. Evidece seems to indicate that the only way BSE can be transfered is by cattle eating contaminated food. Since the USA and Canad have both had a ban on feed containing animal by-products since 1997 it would seem that even if we have a few isolated cases of BSE it is not being spread.

Now if we were to look at all the other zillion ways you can die from eating contaminated food BSE would seem to be a minor concern.

Reference links:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/ma...eatsafety.html

http://www.beef.org/documents/BSE%20...11-17-2003.pdf

[ January 03, 2004, 13:39: Message edited by: DavidG ]