OT: BSE (aka Mad Cow Disease) in the US

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
I'm sure there is more then one case of BSE in Canada but its not that much hyped as it was in Europe.

If your suggesting that there is more than one case of BSE in Canada becuase it hasn't been detected or someone is covering up then you may be right. But it sounds like your suggesting that there have been other public cases in Canada but the media has not reported them due to lack of interest. I can assure you that is not the case. It is a huge deal here.

Due the the high level of integration between the US and Canadian industry a US ban hurts Canada quite a bit.

[Mephisto]

I should have been more clearly. I suggested that there is more than one case of BSE in Canada that just hasn't been detected.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
I should have been more clearly. I suggested that there is more than one case of BSE in Canada that just hasn't been detected.

There isn't.

[Erax]

Actually, a few years back Canada pulled a 'Japan' on Brazil. They stopped importing Brazilian meat (which was no big deal, but then the US stopped too, which really hurt us) on the grounds that our herds were infected. It turns out that we had in fact had some cases of BSE, but they were limited to livestock imported from the UK just before the outbreak there. This UK livestock was slaughtered and disposed of and never hit the market. Animal protein has never been added to animal feed in Brazil. Canada sent a group of experts/inspectors over to check our herds before they resumed their imports.

When the whole story was over, there was a lot of suspicion in the air about the real, political motives for this.

Renegade, I wonder if your press ran this story over there at the time. Down here it was a major brouhaha. We even had a boycott on Canadian artists in the radio.

[Mephisto]

Originally posted by TerranC:
There isn't.

Either this is ironic or lacking any proof.

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
It's right up there with EMF health risks.

Don't laugh at the possibility of EMF health risks. I attended a masters thesis defense a while back. They were exposing prenatal (unborn) rats to an EMF field of a particular pattern for @20 min a day for the entire gestation period. ALL of the rats were born with the symptoms of a particular genetic disorder (the rat Version of MS IIRC) but without actually having the malfunctioning genes. I was quite astounded by the results. The next step is to find out when during the gestation period the fetus is most receptive to such things, which part of the signal is having the effect, etc.

Now this isn't to say that you'll have flipper babies if you live by powerlines or somesuch. It seems to be the pattern of the signal, not the signal itself, that can cause the effects. This does mean that I would think twice before allowing my (ficticious) pregnant wife to excessively use a cellphone (especially one of those hands-free headset ones that clip onto your belt, right next to the kid).

When you hear something strange don't dismiss it out of hand. Take a look at the supporting data and make an educated decision based on that. Serious findings are often distorted by a sensationalist media. I urge you to look further than that before you decide what is true and what isn't.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Mephisto:

quote:

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Originally posted by TerranC:
There isn't.

Either this is ironic or lacking any proof.

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Reuter's < Link

[Renegade 13]

Originally posted by Erax:
Actually, a few years back Canada pulled a 'Japan' on Brazil. They stopped importing Brazilian meat (which was no big deal, but then the US stopped too, which really hurt us) on the grounds that our herds were infected. It turns out that we had in fact had some cases of BSE, but they were limited to livestock imported from the UK just before the outbreak there. This UK livestock was slaughtered and disposed of and never hit the market. Animal protein has never been added to animal feed in Brazil. Canada sent a group of experts/inspectors over to check our herds before they resumed their imports.

When the whole story was over, there was a lot of suspicion in the air about the real, political motives for this.

Renegade, I wonder if your press ran this story over there at the time. Down here it was a major brouhaha. We even had a boycott on Canadian artists in the radio.

Well, I'm not sure if the Canadian press ran the story or not. I'd have been 12 or 13 at the time, and I didn't pay attention to the news . Isn't there still a ban on Brazilian beef imports to Canada?? Wait, I'm thinking of Argentina I think, and that's because of hoof and mouth disease, not BSE. My mistake.

There's one thing though. You mentioned some BSE infected cattle imported from Britain. The US did the same thing, however theirs were never tracked down. Personally, I think the US has cases, and simply doesn't have the testing facilities (or the will??) to be able to detect BSE. I think Canada and the States should stand together on this, and tell Japan to go f*** themselves. (No offense intended to any Japanese people reading this ) The only reason BSE is treated as a huge deal is because of the way Britain screwed up with their outbreak. A single case is really no big deal. It was contained. That should be the end of it. Or is the US more interested in placating Japan than their neighbors and friends to the north??

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Renegade 13:
Isn't there still a ban on Brazilian beef imports to Canada?

The US did the same thing, however theirs were never tracked down. Personally, I think the US has cases, and simply doesn't have the testing facilities (or the will??) to be able to detect BSE.

I think Canada and the States should stand together on this, and tell Japan to go f*** themselves. (No offense intended to any Japanese people reading this ) The only reason BSE is treated as a huge deal is because of the way Britain screwed up with their outbreak. A single case is really no big deal. It was contained. That should be the end of it. Or is the US more interested in placating Japan than their neighbors and friends to the north?

IMHO, The Brazilian ban was lifted. Too much demand for Canada to keep blocking it.

US also had a close case with BSE, when a herd of cattle in Vermont (or could be New Hapshire) was suspected of being infected. They were all slaughtered I think.

Canada and the US are technically together on this, as many CDC officials said quietly that Canadian beef doesn't pose a risk. What's stopping the Americans from opening the border is Japan's adamant threat to close it's borders to American and Canadian beef if the ban is lifted without the approval of Japanese inspection teams, and a labelling system that would differentiate Canadian beef from American beef. Should Japan close it's borders, the most fetching American beef market in asia would vanish, and American beef producers would riot.

And there's no need for us to tell the Japanese to mind their own business; They've recently had their 8th case of Mad Cow disease.

[Mephisto]

Which is the problem. I'd like to know how Japan justifies how it is screwing our cattle insustry.

Well, the European cattle industry wants to know the exact same thing from the US and Canada. The north american states did the exact same thing when they were "BSE-free" to protect their market.