We got burnt out on Mad cow disease postings a few months ago. I heard a radio program today featuring Howard Lyman, author of Mad Cowboy, a book about the meat industry. He was speaking of the likelihood of Mad Cow in the U.S.

Only 2303 cows were inspecteed last year out of 40,000,000 slaughtered, that's 5 thousandths of 1 per cent, not a very convincing search by our protectors. He went on to say that the symptoms of CJD and Alzheimer's are very similar. And that most facilities will not do autopsies for CJD because a confirmation would contaminate the lab.

A big problem he mentions is rendering plants. Its a 2.4 billion dollar industry which processes 40 billion pounds of a animal carcases. Half of a cow goes to the plant along with dead and diseased animals, pets, and road kill. After processing the fatty material is sold for cosmetics, soaps,lubricants, and waxes.

The heavier stuff,which can be 1/4 fecal material, is made into pet and livestock food. 75% of cattle are fed this protein supplement.

Whatdid your meat eat before you got it?

If you're interested, Lyman's website is madcowboy.com.

-- John Littmann (johntl@mtn.org), August 25, 2001

Answers

Haven't seen a mad cow article for some time.

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 25, 2001.

" The heavier stuff,which can be 1/4 fecal material, is made into pet and livestock food. 75% of cattle are fed this protein supplement" >snip Sorry. Absolutely NOT in this country and never in that percentage. The laws were changed back in 1996 to forbid the feeding of ANY animal protein except for dried milk products to ruminants and it's *srictly* enforced. At this point, given the average lifespan of a cow in the commercial farm world, I suspect there are darn few animals still alive which were ever fed animal protein. And "Mad Cow" has *very* alarming symptoms in cattle. Those showing signs of the disease would be handled with fearful care and almost certainly tested after death for rabies, which would show Mad Cow in the brain as well. In the US, the meat supply is safe. However, there is some rational concern about using blood from people who may have been exposed to mad cow in Europe over the last 20 years. There is NO testing of the blood supply for this disease here, at least not yet.

-- A, US Farmer (realfactsplease@farmersfeed.us), August 26, 2001.