Is Milk From Mad Cows Drinkable?

Factual Questions
1
      • We got to chatting about the whole cow situation at work and we decided that we could get along without beef and pork for a while if we had to, but when we began to list our favorite foods that used dairy products, it got scary fast. Can the disease be transmitted by milk? - MC
2

No. It is a brain disease.

The meat is OK also. However, there is risk of contamination of the meat during slaughtering of the cow so it is safer not to eat the meat.

If you were careful you could save the meat but why bother; there are plenty of cattle. Plus people don’t like to buy meet from a sick animal.

3

Not long ago, on NPR’s Science Friday edition of Talk of The Nation, the subject was Mad Cow Disease (BSE). The spokesman for the US Dept. of Agriculture answered this very question. He said it’s safe to eat muscle, and it’s safe to eat dairy products. HOWEVER, ground meat may be suspect, and here’s why: In some packing houses, the stuff left after all the easily removed meat is cut off (bones and such) is crunched up and put into a big press. The puree of mostly-meat that comes out of this press is added to sausage and, sometimes, hamburger. Now, IF some spinal bones got into the mix, and IF those bones came from an animal with BSE, eating the sausage or hamburger could be dangerous. The USDA guy was asked if he still eats beef, he said he did, but not ground beef products.

Keep in mind, though, that no case of BSE in any US cattle has been found. It’s not easy to diagnose BSE. It’s only confirmed by brain autopsy, and it doesn’t develop to a detectable state until the animal is older than most US cattle are allowed to get before they become steaks and fajitas. So, what I’m really saying is, there’s no BSE in the USA, AS FAR AS WE KNOW! The only cattle that get old enough to develop the full-blown disease are dairy cows and breeding stock, so that’s the ones that get autopsied by the USDA.

4

There has been active surveillance for BSE in the US since about 1990, and it has not been found. In countries where they have had problems with Mad Cow disease you might be okay sticking to muscle meats and avoiding sausages and ground meat. Milk and milk products are not believed to be risky. I, myself, would avoid meat altogether in those countries. For more information on BSE from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/cjd.htm

[Edited by JillGat on 03-31-2001 at 12:20 PM]