Mad Cow Disease Found!

Piffka wrote:

Those hoof-and-mouth animals were sometimes well-loved and it tore farms apart...(edit)
It shouldn't be a blame game, it shouldn't be someone gloating over another's misfortune. I certainly did not feel that way when I was in Scotland in 2001 and carefully cleaning my shoes. I thought it was sad, an economic hardship, and pitiful for the animals and farmers. (edit)
The pain and fear of this entire business degrading into happiness at another's misfortune is a really ugly part of the entire problem. My country is filled with a lot more than the asses of Washington D.C.

I apologise if I seemed glib, gleeful or gloating, Piffka. My post was intended to be ironic. It looks like I didn't get it right.

Foot & Mouth filled our media for months. From the back of my parent's house I saw the pyre on a farm a few miles away. It burnt for the best part of a day, and the thick smoke carried the terrible scent of death & despair.

I guess I was (unsucessfully) trying to echo the point made by hamburger elsewhere in this topic that we (Britain & the Continent) have been through all of this before. The first signs of BSE here were around 1986 (not 100% sure of date). That was 17 years ago. Why has North America not sorted all this out sooner?

I believe (again, not 100% sure) that all cattle here are now numbered at birth with ear-tags, and every sale (farm to farm, farm to abattoir, abbattoir to factory) involves reams of paper sent to the relevant government agencies so every single animal can be tracked from birth to consumption. In theory at least.

I genuinely hope that this outbreak of BSE is an isolated incident, for everyone's sake.

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MAD COW DISEASE
piffka : i'm still astounded by the amount of information one can dig up on just about any subject. did a little more "research" of german websites; since many of them are from german universities and deal mainly with research projects, i better admit that i usually do not fully understand them - but it's interesting to look at them and one usually does learn a bit more. ... getting back to "salmonella". i understand that s. thyphimurium is usually transmitted by beef and pork products, and it is not considered a major problem. s. enteritidis is the strain transmitted by chickens and the literatur states that antibiotics are not recommended - perhaps they may even be outlawed in germany as a preventative measure, but a lot of chicken is imported from countries with less stringent handling procedures. the recommendations (law ?) are that chickens are to be "inocculated" (given shots) twice to prevent the s. enteritides from becoming a problem. while all the sites also provide extensive instructions on maintaining cleanliness in the kitchen, they advise against the use of any "strong" cleaning agents - they recommend "plenty of soap and hot water". another interesting point is that they see nothing wrong with consuming "fresh" eggs within 24 hours . hbg

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Ear tags are used, that is how the infected cow was traced. The problem is that there is no central repository for the recordss so the trace is time consuming. The searchs were fortunate to hit it right on the first try.

There have been three bills before congress in the past several years to deal with this problem, each has failed to to cattle industry lobbying. You can be certain they are being revived.

One of the problems with this disease it that there was until last May no evidence of it's presence in North American cattle. Therefore calls for testing of all or most cattle were seen an unnecessary expense. A second problem was that the loudest voice for testing, was that of Stanley Prusiner, the discoverer of prions and winner of the Nobel Prize for his work.. Prusiner however also owns the patent for the cheapest and most effective test for prions, so it was unclear whether his concern came from self interest or a concern for the public well being.

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"I feel slightly smug" doesn't even approach what I would consider gloating, GD.

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roger wrote:

"I feel slightly smug" doesn't even approach what I would consider gloating, GD.

Are you saying I am bad or good, Roger? It's late (here), I'm tired, and I've been on strong painkillers and muscle relaxants for a month. Parts of my brain are shutting down, including the part that would have understood the meaning in what you said. Sorry.

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I had to do an essay on antibiotic resistance for biology class. While everyone seems to be aware of the problem, the evidence I found was that nobody seems to be actually doing anything about it.

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Grand Duke - Certainly not bad.

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I think Roger was saying you weren't coming close to gloating, GD. Rest easy and I hope that you are healed soon from whatever it is that makes you take such strong meds.

I was discussing this with Mr.Piffka and he pointed out to me that, sadly, the United States had Hoof & Mouth Disease in the past. I am so glad it doesn't affect horses. I know how stricken I'd be if someone told me I would have to put down my horse.

From USDA FAQ Factsheet

Quote:

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a severe, highly communicable viral disease of cattle and swine. It also affects sheep, goats, deer, and other cloven-hooved ruminants. FMD is not recognized as a zoonotic disease.

This country has been free of FMD since 1929, when the last of nine U.S. outbreaks was eradicated.

The disease is characterized by fever and blister-like lesions followed by erosions on the tongue and lips, in the mouth, on the teats, and between the hooves. Many affected animals recover, but the disease leaves them debilitated. It causes severe losses in the production of meat and milk.

Because it spreads widely and rapidly and because it has grave economic as well as clinical consequences, FMD is one of the animal diseases that livestock owners dread most.

Ossobuco -- Do you mean that the resistance of salmonella bacteria doesn't have anything to do with innoculations against it?

Hamburger, I guess I'm getting it mixed up. It is interesting that we can do so much just with hot water and soap.

Wilso -- I think that bacteria's resistance to antibiotics is very, very frightening. Mr.P refuses to take antibiotics most of the time, saying he wants to save them for when they're truly needed. If only everybody felt that way. I'm sorry to say that when I was a child I was bombarded with them, otherwise I would probably have died from one infection or another. I ended up becoming allergic to two of the big three: Penicillin and Sulfa. You'll be glad to know that the doctors at our clinic no longer prescribe antibiotics unless there is a very clear need. Each time it is prescribed, we are told about bacterial resistance and the importance of taking all the medication, not saving or sharing it. It is not a lot, but at least it is something.

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You're right as usual, Piffka, but I PMed Grand Duke anyway, though sometimes my clarifications don't clarify much.

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Piffka, inoculation is a word associated with injection of a weak form of a disease entity to an animal or human in order to produce antibodies in that animal/human to fight off the disease, as in vaccination. I don't know anything about doing that re salmonella. Also innoculate is used as a word for introducing aliquots of a substance to 'somewhere', as in "I am going to inoculate the blood agar plates with a loop from that patient's specimen."

Resistance to antibiotics is a function of bacteria being exposed to the antibios and, effectively, getting used to them, which I suppose means that they develop some sort of coat for whatever receptor was affected by the antibiotic (just guessing, it's been years since I was a med tech. Thus the continuously heard, but not much followed, caution against antibiotic overuse.

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Haha, Roger. Right as usual? <sigh> If only.

I knew you were being kind. You're a good guy!

Gads, Osso. You've used some words there that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. Very Happy

Argggh. I'm out of my depth before I even stick a toe in. I'm sure you're right, though it does seem coincidentally odd that the resistance goes up (and so quickly, too) when the innoculations do.

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That increased resistance is simply natural selection (evolution) at work. Although the inoculation creates a toxic environment for the bacteria, a very small number have a variation in their DNA that makes them naturally resistant. They survive, reproduce and their numbers come to dominate the population of bacteria. Thus you have an antibiotic resistant strain of the bacteria. I cannot think of any better proof of Darwin's theory.

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But that generally happens re antibios. I don't know it happen re inoculations of, say, vaccinia pox, which protected against smallpox. I think, but am not positive, that these are two different subjects. They were in my day, but 'my day' was some time ago.

And I agree re the mutation/natural selection comment of aquiunk, as to how resistance to antibiotics occurs. That mutation would take some practical form, such as making the antibio not work at the receptor level (surmising).

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Ah, but I see you are saying that it does happen re vaccinations (inoculation), acquiunk. I can't argue, I don't know, but I guess I am surprised. I guess I don't understand what resistance to antibiotics has to do with inoculation with a weak form of the "bug".

I am more surprised that anybody would inoculate chickens with a salmonella strain in this manner, that is, with a not-chicken-affecting salmonella. Hmmmm.

I am out of my element, just talking here.

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ossobuco : i pulled this of the german website of the vaccine producer ... " Der Impfstoff wird zweimal in der 6. und 14. Lebenswoche als subkutane Injektion verabreicht, was zu einer guten humoralen Antikörperbildung führt. Nach der Anwendung des Impfstoffes ist bei den geimpften Tieren keine Wartezeit für Eier oder Fleisch einzuhalten " ... the vaccine is to be given by "subcutaneous injection" in the 6 th and 14 th week of life of the chicken. once the animals have been vaccinated the eggs or meat require no waitingtime - reday for consumption, i guess. more tomorrow. hbg

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Piffka wrote:

Mr.P refuses to take antibiotics most of the time, saying he wants to save them for when they're truly needed. If only everybody felt that way.

Very wise. I actually read reports of people who took the things haphazardly, and it ultimately resulted in their deaths.

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Scandinavian countries banned antibiotics in cattle/animal feed over 10 years ago.
Food with antibiotics is often fed to cows in the same way steroids are fed to athletes. Not because cows or chickens are sick, but because the cow needs to gain weight fast. The Danish found exercise, a clean stall 'soap and water' and good food will provide the same results.
Drug companies produce virtually the same product, a mirrored medicine to both humans and animals. We eat antibiotics in our food every day. Cows pee antibiotics straight into the watershed and fish, bugs, birds, and other animals are poisoned?inoculated. Eventually the infected water winds up on the crops.
Of course we are becoming more resistant to drugs. We're playing with the circle of life. The cattle industry will only clean up its act, if people demand safer product and are willing to pay the higher cost.

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I'm not disagreeing about concern about antibiotics in cattle feed, etc., and I'm with Mr. Piffka in rarely taking them myself.

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Something very strange going on in the US. People are continuing to eat beef, and beef consumption is at an all time high.

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Not only Scandinavian but all EU countries banned antibiotics in cattle years ago.

And of course we get salmonella here: especially, when personal in senior residences makes pudding from eggs on Saturdays for Sunday and leaves all open until that lunchtime ...

Cattle gets a tag on each ear here in the EU. And as said above, you can trace every piece of meat you by at the butcher's down to place the animal was born ... in the shop, if you want (and insist!).

From today's NYT:

Quote:

So far, agriculture officials in Washington are basing their argument that Canada was the source of the first reported mad cow disease case in the United States on an ear tag that they said had come from the infected cow. But many American experts, echoing complaints of Canadian agriculture officials, said that was unreliable evidence for building a case.

The ear tag was recovered from the animal when it was slaughtered. Records matched the ear tag number to a herd in Canada, officials said on Saturday.
But three days before that announcement, American officials said that records on the diseased animal were terrible and that its birthplace might never be known.

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Mad Cow Disease Found!

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