From: Randall Parker 

Phil Payne wrote:

> The problem was known in the UK for a long time before it became apparent
> that humans might be affected.  Scrapie was the first manifestion of such
> diseases, and the USA is currently banned from exporting sheep because of
> it:
>
> http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/scrapie/
>
> "Kuru" is worth some searches.

Now you are talking about sheep.  But with the USDA publicising the problem in web
pages where is the evidence of "cover-up"?

> The cow was a "downer" - testing occured _AFTER_ the meat from the cow
> entered the food chain.  A day - a week - a month?  Does it matter?

You are the one who used the term "cover-up". How is this a
"cover-up"? Do explain.

The testing is done in order to discover whether some disease is in the herd. It is
not surprising it is done after the fact. The odds of any animal coming back positive
are very low. If the standard practice is the test only a portion of downers, if this
is not a secret, and if the downers are sent off to be queued up for lab tests after
slaughter, again, where is the cover-up?

You can criticise this and claim the downers shouldn't be sold as human food. You can
criticise this and claim that all downers should be tested. But then the USDA will
claim it is not cost-effective and that the extra dollars spent will do little for
human disease prevention. Where's the cost analysis that says they are
right or wrong?

> Doesn't matter a tinker's fuck.  Infected meat is in the human food chain -
> period.

Yes, it does matter a tinker's fuck. People are not willing to spend an infinite
amount of money on any form of safety. There is a cost per life saved in
car regulation, airline regulation, food regulation, and other areas. Is
the amount of
money spent per life saved for food safety out of line with other areas? Actually,
the one area that is out of line is airline safety where the cost per life saved is
way higher than in other areas of regulation. But that is what the public wants.

Testing for mad cow is done mainly to alert to whether the disease is present in cows
at all. Once it is found then it makes sense to do much more widespread testing. It
rarely occurs in cows in the United States. There are more important health dangers
to spend money on where the dollars spent will do more for human health. For food,
for instance, it probably makes more sense to spend on bacterial infection control.
Surely bacterial infections are killing more people in the US (since they
are actually killing people).

>>It is possible that there is no greater incidence of mad cow disease in the
US today
>>than there was 30 or 40 years ago but that now it is being looked for more
carefully
>>and therefore it is being diagnosed where previously it wouldn't have been.
Or then
>>again, feeding practices (which are my greatest concern) may have raised the
risks.
>>If so, time to stop feeding brains to animals. But what was this cow fed?
>
> That's what we need to know.  But with 200,000-odd "downer"
cows a year and
> only 20,000-odd tests, you have to ask some questions.

Hardly. Testing one fifth for years and never finding cases till now
suggests strongly that the other four fifths are unlikely to have the
disease either. Now, if
the USDA has seen other cow cases in those 20,000 per year and hid the evidence then
that would be a cover-up and I'd join in calling for heads to roll.

As for the cost effectiveness of mad cow testing: How much does each test cost? How
accurate is the test? What is the statistical risk of a single human infection per
mad cow that gets into the food supply?

If someone wants to make an economic case for increased food safety regulation with a
demonstration that money per life saved is too low for food safety as compared to,
for example, car safety I'd like to hear it.

> I do remember quite a bit of mud being slung in our direction when _WE_ had
> the problem.

Most of that mud was being slung by British people at their own government. I read
about it on British news sites. The average American was probably unaware of the
problem in Britain.

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