During a long layover at a major airport, I was in a bookstore flipping through the paperback edition of Fast Food Nation, which, like many paperback editions of popular non-fiction books originally in hardback, has an added section. In this case, it’s one about Mad Cow disease, which got some play in the main section, but got even more press after the hardback edition ws first published.
This new section, by my reading, makes these assertions:
a) The government, under pressure from the various meat industries, still allows many “cannibalistic feed” practices that are quite dangerous.
b) Further, said meat industries, under economic pressure to produce more with less, consistently let safety practices that might prevent mad cow, including observing a ban on cannibalistic feeds, slide.
c) Chances are good that mad cow could cross species over to pork and poultry, with no outward sign of disease.
d) Therefore, due to the long incubation of the disease, we could be facing an epidemic of symptoms sometime in the future. How severe and how big, there’s no telling.
So what do you think? Could the species jump have happened already? This strikes me as the key question, since if true, that would mean that no meat is really safe. Will large spates of Mad Cow symptoms start popping up in the next decade? If so, how big, do you think? If it does happen, what will happen to the meat industry? What do you think of the meat you’re eating right now?
It’s entirely possible that the disease could jump species. I also think this would be front page news if it was confirmed.
Regarding the hypothetical question as to what the effect of such an event would be on societies view of meat eating, hard to say.
I sense a slight pro-vegetarian/vegan slant to the OP. I would agree that the slaughter of animals for human consumption is a an argument that falls to pieces when examined, but I don’t think society is ready yet to give up our meat. We will dispute facts, rationalize, do whatever it takes to justify our consumption of meat. Stricter regulations in Canada (our livestock industries hold huge influence over Western Canadian politics, as does the fishery industry in the Maritimes - us Ontario folk will probably stand by them) will probably be the main result. Maybe even som finger pointing at Canada as the Mad Cow swarming lair of the world.
I am sure some religions will capitalize on the findings (Islam forbids pork, Hinduism forbids beef and encourages vegetarianism).
Not intended. I do eat meat. I’m just concerned about the allegations made in the book (partly 'cause I’m kinda hypochondriatic), and wondered how strong they were. Plus, I was idly wondering just what it would take to cause the meat and/or fast food industries to collapse in on itself, or at least be reduced to a mere shadow of what it is today.
It’s difficult not to sound alarmist about it, but IF (big, big if, possibly the biggest if humans have ever seen) everything known about the disease turns out to be correct, I’d imagine the course of humanity has already been drastically altered. Without some kind of test for infection, breeding regulations would have to be affected (is BSE genetically transmissable? who knows at this point), ideas like raising animals just to eat them might be discarded, more thought to the future might be put into things that are just “done” now with today’s $ in mind… society would have to change in ways almost unimaginable to us now.
But then if you’ve eaten beef in the last ten years or so, why give a crap, by 2015 you might be a raving loony just like me! Or maybe not. We don’t know.
(considering how small the sample-testing in North America is, it’s not very significant (or surprising) that it hasn’t turned up much. And given the track record thus far, anyone who believes their government is being up-front and honest about the situation needs to read up a little.)
Swoop: You make it sound apocalyptic. Imagine if BSE is what ends civilization as we know it! The only way it could be more ironic would be if it did so on December 22, 2015, or whatever that Mayan date was…
What we ‘know’ is to look at the development curves; the people most susceptible develop it earlier than the later bulge in a bell-curve, etc. and right now the curve is far flatter than initially thought:
THE lowest estimate so far of the extent of the “human BSE” epidemic - with only 200 cases overall - is published today by an Anglo-French team of scientists.
Earlier estimates of the effects of eating meat contaminated with BSE have ranged from around 100,000 to a few thousand, with the current number of deaths numbering just over 100.
Figures from the UK’s National CJD Surveillance Unit suggest the worst of human BSE infection may be over.
This week, scientists predicted a total of 7,000 people will end up being infected with the disease - far fewer than the half a million originally predicted.
This came up last night over a rousing game of trivia pursuit. One of the fellas saw a poster at some conference (AIBS? can’t recall) saying that prion-like diseases (e.g. mad cow) may be responsible for some cases of Alzheimer’s, but its not tested for. To be fair, he said that assorted types of encephalitis (LaCrosse, St. Louis, West Nile-style) are more commonly misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s than mad cow.
It already has. Although they are also ruminants, mad cow disease or BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) has been detected in deer and elk herds from Virginia to Colorado. Hunters who regularly consume venison have been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is the prion induced encephalopathy in humans.
Here is a good British article on the expected human death toll
I foresee massive lawsuits against American feed manufacturers who permitted ground animal matter to be included in bovine animal feed. Here’s a paper I wrote for aloha aloha some while ago on this exact topic.
Trans-Species Animal Vector Monitoring Program
August 12, 2002 Scope:
Reliable detection and mitigation of certain species vectored viral and plasmid agents.
Purpose:
Detection, prevention and remediation of West Nile Virus and CJD related outbreaks.
Method:
In vivo monitoring via captive stations and radio collar or tagged animal tracking.
Priority:
Absolutely critical due to extremely delayed onset of CJD analog illnesses and high mortality rates for the West Nile virus.
Analysis:
The westward migration of the West Nile Virus and recent inferences of potential CJD species jumping from bovines to other ruminants mandate the most aggressive campaign of early detection and abatement possible.
Distinct programs are required to canvass existing stocks plus wild populations of cattle and deer. Additional indicator species must be monitored through fixed locale stations, random sampling and correlated inferences from statistical populations elsewhere.
Enormous penalties await even the least hesitation regarding this issue. Delayed onset increases downstream fatalities by entirely unacceptable orders of magnitude.
Implications: Reuse of slaughter byproducts for animal feed purposes must cease instantly. Huge liabilities await major meat packers for reintroduction of non-normal feed products into the human food chain. Bovine cannibalism is statistically insignificant and cannot mitigate any culpability for intentional feedstock reuse of slaughter byproducts. (Competent farmers and ranchers are justifiably averse to leaving herds in contact with fresh or rotting carcasses, let alone allowing their consumption by stock.)
Large-scale eradication programs may be required. Massive sampling surveys combined with contraceptive bait represent a less intrusive method but infected populations must be inhibited regardless. Development and testing cycles for appreciably low-impact remediation may well exceed allowable time constraints in order to achieve valid prophylaxis. Public safety far outweighs nearly all environmental impact issues.
All interception of unobserved or previously deceased deer and cattle must be treated as hazardous waste. Indiscriminate and casual disposal of such carcasses must be prohibited and incineration via fixed and mobile units must be implemented. Suspect remains shall undergo routine biological screening. Federally sponsored development of rapid genomic assay methods must be brought online.
Local animal control organizations face potentially inhibiting diversion of finances to cope with implementation and ongoing monitoring. Federal assistance will be necessary to account for this shortfall.
Solutions:
Periodic monitoring of regional livestock populations must be combined with feral cattle and wild deer tagging and tracking programs. Captive specimens of indicator species must be stationed at all known vector concentrations. Control groups of these indicator stocks must be maintained to correctly assay exposure and infection rates.
Recreational deer hunting may need to be restricted or eliminated in favor of professional thinning. Exposure of wild deer populations via the escape of wounded targets back into the wild poses a significant threat. Mandatory submission for bioassay of samples from carcasses brought to independent game processors may be required.
Medical profiling of all licensed recreational deer hunters might be able to provide early warning and detection of human exposure to CJD analogs. This could also be extended to staff involved in commercial venison farming as well. Routine monitoring of commercial deer stocks that might serve as an alternative control group or indicator could be useful.
Close collaboration with the CDC and other academic institutions will serve to distribute labor intensive data tracking duties and provide secondary verification of findings. A national database for all findings must be assembled to support these efforts.
Summary: The prolonged incubation cycle of prion induced CJD analogs puts this problem on a par with the AIDS epidemic. While prion exposure routes are more limited than those of HIV this is offset by the two-pronged assault presented by the West Nile Virus. Both epidemics demand extremely similar detection and abatement methodologies. The shared requirements for rapid genomic assay, large scale in vivo canvassing and tracking, an extensive control group population and intensive data mining make it vital that both of these programs be executed in tandem. Dual use application of advanced technology otherwise unaffordable to either program individually could overcome critical gating issues faced by these separate efforts.
Outside-in modes of planning and containment will yield synergistic efficacy vital to any remote hope for enhanced results. Standard methods of abatement will neither yield sufficient chance of success nor any potential to supersede goals anticipated via typical ongoing implementation. Combined effort is required to achieve even minimal odds of breakthrough technology or truly effective monitoring and remediation.
Extreme methods may be required to contain high-density outbreaks, especially dual epidemiology events. Correlative modeling against forestry burn risk data may indicate use of high-rate controlled burns to simultaneously abate infected populations and understory overgrowth. Anticipated fuel-air bombing combined with pinpoint napalm attacks might prove useful towards the simultaneous elimination of infected herds and carrier mosquito outbreaks in areas of dense understory already in need of a controlled burn. Purposeful containment of wildlife within the burn site may provide a highly effective disposal route.
