Mad cow hysteria is not justified
Mad cow disease. Even the name conjures up visions of cattle romping glassy-eyed, frothing at the mouth, attacking everyone in sight. Well, it just ain’t so.
Certainly our Department of Agriculture and other government regulatory agencies should do everything possible to control any outbreak of disease among animals, wild or domesticated. But there should be reason in all things.
Last Tuesday, the Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, held a 45-minute, nationally broadcast “news conference” to announce a possibility that one Holstein milk cow slaughtered on a ranch in the state of Washington had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. It has since been confirmed by a laboratory in London the cow did in fact have that disease.
As a result of Madam Veneman’s inflammatory statements, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela, Egypt, Australia, and two dozen other nations have already banned their beef importation, with more to follow. Tens of thousands of pounds of beef have been recalled from the market. Safeway, a longtime customer of the firm that slaughtered the cow, said it will start looking for another supplier. Beef prices fell the maximum limit in Christmas Eve trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The price of beef is expected to continue its slide when markets open following the holiday. A chief economist at a Chicago investment banking firm estimates that this could cost the beef industry as much as $5 billion in coming months.
As stated previously, we should take every effort to control the spread of this, and all communicable diseases. But there should be some reason somewhere. Even Ms. Veneman said mad cow disease is not nearly as contagious a disease as is foot and mouth disease.
Apparently Ms. Veneman didn’t realize cows don’t have “feet.” They have hooves, and the correct name of the disease she referenced is hoof and mouth disease.
Mad cow disease is transmitted to other cattle through their ingestion of brain and spinal cord tissue from infected animals. Such tissue was at one time used in cattle feed, but the practice was outlawed in 1997. It is presumed this cow may have gotten some feed produced prior to the ban.
The brain and spinal cord of the cow in question was disposed of at a rendering plant, according to law. A variant of the disease, Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, can be transmitted to humans by eating the meat of such infected animals.
True, infected feed caused a spreading of mad cow disease in England a number of years ago, but what few cows that are produced in England are in a very confined area, not on an open range such as we have in the state of Washington.
And we should keep in mind we are only talking of one cow. A Holstein milk cow. Not a beef cow. And the slaughter house that processed the carcass of this one cow does not export beef! Never has.
But Ms. Veneman’s obsession with face-time on national TV has caused a hysteria that will affect every beef producer in the country — even hundreds here in Middle Tennessee. President Bush should fire her on the spot!
(Ed Wood is a Sparta resident who has had columns published in other area newspapers. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].)