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From: TSS ()
Feb. 2, 2006, 9:20PM WASHINGTON - Federal inspectors on the watch for mad cow disease have permitted animals unable to walk to enter the food chain, despite fears that such animals could harbor the dread illness. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service had issued rules that allowed its inspectors to give the green light to slaughter downer cows, if those animals were known to have suffered an acute injury after passing a previous inspection, the Inspector General noted in a report released Thursday. But the investigators could find no records for 20 of the 29 animals that indicated the animals in question had suffered severe injuries. The Inspector General's Office went further, saying that by allowing any of these animals into the food chain, the agency was not abiding by its own regulations. The Food Safety and Inspection Service's policy states that all animals that are unable to walk will be kept out of the food chain "regardless of the reason for their nonambulatory status or the time at which they became nonambulatory," the Inspector General's report said. USDA officials have promised to clarify their rules regarding the slaughter of nonambulatory animals. In a review of 12 facilities across the country, investigators also learned that some downer animals were not tested for mad cow by USDA inspectors stationed at slaughterhouses, because the potentially diseased cows were separated out from healthier animals on premises adjacent to the slaughter facilities. Agency inspectors "stated they did not believe that they had the authority to go into these sorting ... areas and require that the rejected animals be provided ... for sampling," the report noted. Bill Hyman, executive director of the Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas, said his organization's members were "disappointed to hear they're not abiding by their own rules. As cattle producers, we attempt to abide by the rules, and we would expect the USDA to abide by the same rules." USDA rules also ban certain parts where mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is most likely to develop. Investigators found no evidence such materials entered the food chain, but they could not determine whether proper procedures were followed to ensure that was not happening in nine of the 12 facilities visited as part of the probe. The Inspector General's report represents another black eye for the Agriculture Department and its efforts to assure the world American beef is safe. The report comes two weeks after Japan again closed its borders to U.S. beef products after inspectors there discovered pieces of backbone in a veal shipment. While such meat products would be deemed safe for human consumption in the United States, Japan has forbidden their import because of mad cow concerns. A USDA inspector had approved that shipment. As a safeguard, the USDA requires removal of so-called specified risk materials, or SRM, such as brains and spinal cords, from older cattle. "If you look at any audit that was ever done, we have found we have never had SRMs get in the food supply," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns told Reuters on Thursday. david.ivanovich@chron.com purva.patel@chron.com http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/3632798.html greetings, >>>"If you look at any audit that was ever done, we have found we have never had SRMs get in the food supply," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns told Reuters on Thursday.<<< reminds me of ; 'we have the embasils on the run" IF the insinuation from the fda that feeding cows to cows at the rate of 5.5 grams of potentially tainted TSE cows is perfectly safe, then it is very possible every cow out there is potentially tainted with TSE that enters the food chain; ===================================== FDA ANNOUNCES TEST RESULTS FROM TEXAS FEED LOT FDA has determined that each animal could have consumed, at most and in total, five-and-one-half grams - approximately a quarter ounce -- of prohibited material. These animals weigh approximately 600 pounds. It is important to note that the prohibited material was domestic in origin (therefore not likely to contain infected material because there is no evidence of BSE in U.S. cattle), fed at a very low level, and fed only once. The potential risk of BSE to such cattle is therefore exceedingly low, even if the feed were contaminated. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2001/NEW00752.html ==================================== Nature 421, 459 (2003); doi:10.1038/421459a All the President's yes-men? George W. Bush's administration stands accused of biasing the process by The relationship between science and politics is never perfect, but Just last week, a storm of protest greeted the announcement that Jerry The controversy extends to committees that review grant applications. Some of the recent developments are disturbing. If the committee on But successive US administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have Those with long memories say that the present outcry is reminiscent of There is some comfort to be gained from the checks and balances inherent This does not mean that the critics should relax. They should look back Scientists should fight undue attempts by the Bush administration to Macmillan MagazinesNature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2003 Registered No. http://www.nature.com/ From: TSS () PrPSc distribution of a natural case of bovine Yoshifumi Iwamaru, Yuka Okubo, Tamako Ikeda, Hiroko Hayashi, Mori- Priori Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, 3-1-5 Abstract Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a disease of cattle that causes The specified risk materials (SRM) are tissues potentially carrying BSE The 11th BSE case in Japan was detected in fallen stock surveillance. PrPSc was detected in brain, spinal cord, dorsal root ganglia, trigeminal Our results suggest that the currently accepted definitions of SRM in 179 T. Kitamoto (Ed.) SPRINGER proceedings "PRIONS" of =========================================== =========================================== Vet Pathol 42:107–108 (2005) Letters to the Editor Editor: Absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. In the article ‘‘Failure to detect prion protein (PrPres) by immunohistochemistry in striated muscle tissues of animals experimentally inoculated with agents of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy,’’ recently published in Veterinary Pathology (41:78–81, 2004), PrPres was not detected in striated muscle of experimentally infected elk, cattle, sheep, and raccoons by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Negative IHC, however, does not exclude the presence of PrPSc. For example, PrPres was detected in skeletal muscle in 8 of 32 humans with the prion disease, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), using sodium phosphotungstic acid (NaPTA) precipitation and western blot.1 The NaPTA precipitation, described by Wadsworth et al.,3 concentrates the abnormal isoform of the prion, PrPres, from a large tissue homogenate volume before western blotting. This technique has increased the sensitivity of the western blot up to three orders of magnitude and could be included in assays to detect PrPres. Extremely conspicuous deposits of PrPres in muscle were detected by IHC in a recent case report of an individual with inclusion body myositis and CJD.2 Here, PrPres was detected in the muscle by immunoblotting, IHC, and paraf- fin-embedded tissue blot. We would therefore caution that, in addition to IHC, highly sensitive biochemical assays and bioassays of muscle are needed to assess the presence or absence of prions from muscle in experimental and natural TSE cases. Christina Sigurdson, Markus Glatzel, and Adriano Aguzzi Institute of Neuropathology University Hospital of Zurich Zurich, Switzerland References 1 Glatzel M, Abela E, et al: Extraneural pathologic prion protein in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. N Engl J Med 349(19):1812–1820, 2003 2 Kovacs GG, Lindeck-Pozza E, et al: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and inclusion body myositis: abundant diseaseassociated prion protein in muscle. Ann Neurol 55(1): 121–125, 2004 3 Wadsworth JDF, Joiner S, et al: Tissue distribution of protease resistant prion protein in variant CJD using a highly sensitive immuno-blotting assay. Lancet 358:171–180, 2001 ===================================== ===================================== Johanns et al are responsible for this continued year after year after year of blundering the BSE surveillance in the USA. They (HE) is no different than the TOP of ENRON, and Johanns et al should be on trial somewhere, if not here, then they will be judged in hell, along with there whole regime for ignoring the 'sound science' all for a buck. it's called GWs BSE MRR policy, the legal trading of all strains of BSE/TSE globally. ...TSS
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