Z Magazine, March 2004
By: John E. Peck
On Dec. 23, 2003, just in time for the holiday season, the first U.S. case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) – better known as “Mad Cow” disease - was reported by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) at the Sunny Dene Ranch near Mabton, WA. The sick cow, originally imported from Canada where Mad Cow was also found last year, was part of a 4,000 head confinement operation, most likely injected with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) – produced by biotech bacteria raised on bovine blood - and fed a total mixed ration (TMR) containing such “high protein” animal byproducts as poultry manure, tallow, gelatin, and plate waste. Its young were also probably weaned on calf milk replacer and raised on calf starter, containing spray dried animal blood. That cows designed by nature to eat grass have now been turned into cannibals is one of the more perverse results of a food system run under “free trade” for the benefit of corporate agribusiness.
Some 43 countries have now rejected U.S. beef, including Japan which imported $854 million worth in 2002. The final toll on the $40 billion U.S. beef industry could be massive – and beyond the power of even the Aitken’s Diet to remedy. Wiser U.S. farmers who resisted the advice of university extension agents and corporate feed peddlers report booming demand for their natural grass-fed meat. Thanks to simple anti-BSE policies the U.S. refused to implement, farmers in nations like Brazil, South Africa, and Australia are now ready to provide the safer healthier meat the world really wants.
Mad Cow is but one of a whole family of diseases believed to be caused by a renegade protein strand called a prion. Tougher than viruses or bacteria, prions are not destroyed by cooking, freezing, sterilization or irradiation. Worse yet, they can jump between species. Once eaten, prions defy digestion and accumulate in toxic clumps slowly eroding brain tissue. This lethal condition is known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in deer and elk, in sheep it is called Scrappie, while in humans it is known as Kuru (found among certain societies that practice cannibalism), though there is growing evidence that prions are also linked to Creuzveldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) as well as Ahlzheimers. Over 140 people have now died in Europe from variant CJD linked to Mad Cow.
There have been alarm bells that Mad Cow would reach the U.S for quite sometime. As early as the mid 1980s, University of Wisconsin-Madison veterinary professor, Richard Marsh investigated the deadly neurological epidemics ravaging mink factory farms that relied on sick dairy cows for feed. Opponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) raised concerns about the unfettered movement of animals across borders spreading disease – and a decade later Mexico shipped over 1 million cows to the U.S., while Canada exported 1.7 million. Once Mad Cow hit Europe, Oprah Winfrey dared to have a former MT rancher turned food activist, Howard Lyman, on her program – and was later sued (unsuccessfully) by the meat industry for “food libel.” Less than a year later in 1997, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton published their prophetic expose Mad Cow USA – now available free online from PR Watch.
Unfortunately, corporate agribusiness and the Bush/Cheney administration remain in a state of denial about the sorry state of our food system. Agricultural Secretary, Ann Veneman, may have pledged to serve beef to her own family as part of their holiday fare, but most U.S. consumers have had no choice for years about whether or not they were eating possibly BSE infected products, nor did most U.S. farmers have the right to know where their feed came from or what it actually contained. USDA plans to contain Mad Cow by increasing BSE testing, cleaning-up slaughterhouse practices, tracking livestock nationally, and mandating better meat/feed labeling are all long overdue – and hardly go far enough in the minds of many family farm advocates and consumer watch dogs.
As early as 1991 federal studies had also warned that Mad Cow was not just a European crisis but on America’s doorstep. The revolving door, though, between the meat industry and regulatory agencies – as well as $22 million in campaign contributions Big Beef has larded on influential politicians since 1990 - insured little was done. The highly touted 1997 USDA “ban” on feeding dead livestock back to themselves was nothing more than a flimsy labeling “rule.” In fact, federal inspectors found in 2000 that half of all rendering plants and feed mills lacked the proper warning labels and up to a quarter had no way to even detect or prevent mix-ups in their use of risky animal byproducts. There was never any “firewall” to protect consumers and farmers from the bottom-line fallout of industrial agribusiness. Instead, private profit was allowed to run roughshod over public safety – just like in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, the Jungle.
Reading more recent books like Gail Eisnitz’s Slaughterhouse or Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, one realizes not much has changed in the meat industry a century later. Burned-out dairy cows too sick to walk – called “downers” - are still literally dragged to slaughter with 200,000 entering the U.S. food supply last year. The USDA prohibited “downers” from the national school lunch program, but they were still legal for adults and children to eat elsewhere. Thanks to such reckless - but profitable - innovations as air injected stunning, mechanical deboning, and advanced meat recovery (AMR), “meat” has come to include everything from brain and spinal column to cartilage and nerve tissue. Corporate consolidation and vertical integration means massive co-mingling of animal products and rapid dispersal of food contamination. The fact that one Mad Cow could trigger meat recalls in eight states and one U.S. territory should make anyone think twice about eating hamburger, pepperoni, hotdogs, bologna, tacos, or sausage.
There are serious measures the U.S. could take to prevent the spread of Mad Cow:
1.) Approve and Implement Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) - consumers and farmers should be able to know exactly where their food and feed come from.
2.) Ban Feeding of Animals Back to Animals, Including Manure, Blood, Tallow, Gelatin, Plate Waste - cannibalism is not natural and that’s why it’s dangerous.
3.) Ban Advance Meat Recovery (AMR) and Other Risky Slaughter Practices – people should not be duped into eating dangerous byproducts as “meat.”
4.) Expand BSE Testing to All Slaughtered Livestock - this is already done in Japan and could easily be done here with new quick BSE testkits.
5.) Expand Federal Prion Research and Begin National CJD Monitoring – ignorance is not bliss when it comes to prions and their impact on animals and people
6.) Regulate High Risk Animal Byproducts in Dietary Supplements and Cosmetics – consumers need to know about other BSE risks they may face.
U.S. farmers and consumers deserve to feel angry and betrayed in the wake of this preventable national catastrophe. As the latest Midwest joke goes, who needs to worry about bioterrorism when the USDA is on the job! This is not to deny the sincere – even Herculean - efforts of responsible public servants to safeguard our nation’s food supply. Too often, though, their hands have been tied by budget cutbacks, deregulation, privatization, and corrupt officials. When it comes to Mad Cow in the U.S. the proof is literally in the pudding – and the burger. While some who predicted this disaster long ago might feel smug, most family farmers and consumer advocates remain more somber than sanguine. After all, the Frankenstein that corporate agribusiness and factory farming created now walks among us.
