On Dec. 23, 2003, the first case of Mad Cow disease in the United States was discovered in a single “downer” cow in Washington State. Since then, more than 30 countries have banned American beef products.
The dairy cow that contracted the disease was not able to stand due to a birthing injury and was slaughtered for human consumption after inspection. Fearful of succeeding the United Kingdom’s epidemic outbreak of Mad Cow, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a hasty recall of all cattle slaughtered in the same plant as the sick cow.
Guilford Biology professor Frank Keegan finds the way Mad Cow disease spreads fascinating. “It’s not a bacteria, not a virus, and not an infectious agent,” Keegan said.
Mad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) is caused by a genetic mutation of normal brain proteins by misfolded “prions” that force other proteins to mutate. Much about the prions’ function is still unknown.
It is generally accepted that cows contract the disease by eating BSE-contaminated meat and bone meal. High-risk central nervous system tissues such as the brain and spinal cord are often removed from cows during slaughter then used as animal feed.
In a statement for the USDA, spokesperson Ann Veneman assured the public that the beef supply is still safe, arguing that the prions that cause Mad Cow are not found in the cow’s muscle tissue, the meat we consume. What’s more, Veneman and Washington’s governor both announced that their Christmas menu would include beef.
However, several concerned organizations fear that the USDA is trying to protect the interests of the beef industry and could be misleading Americans about beef safety. Guilford sophomore Heather Wunner, a vegetarian, believes that the recent Mad Cow finding has been neglected by the media.
“It’s finally bringing up the question: how safe is our food?” said Wunner.
The Organic Consumers Association argues that Americans do eat central nervous system tissue from cows. Products such as beef stock and flavoring are made from boiling the skeletal remains of cattle, including the spinal column.
After listening to NPR’s coverage of Mad Cow, Wunner found the news shocking and considered the process of killing the cows dangerous. “They’re cut straight down the middle so the spinal cord is split and the surrounding meat can be contaminated,” she said. The World Health Organization reports that the devices used to initially stun the cows cause a high-pressure impact that can scatter bits of brain matter back into the bloodstream.
In 1997, the USDA issued a feed regulation that requires all feed made from meat and bone meal to be labeled ‘do not feed to ruminants.’ Government investigations have found the rule to be widely ignored by farmers; the feed from ruminants is cheap and still available.
But the 1997 feed ban did not include cow blood. Calves taken from their mothers are frequently weaned on milk replacers made from cattle blood protein, which is often cheaper than whole milk. Blood products most likely contain low levels of infectivity, but have not been ruled out for BSE transmission.
Jamara Knight, Guilford student and Washington State resident, insists that “large meat corporations are hungry to gain profit and beef up their animals.” She suggests that meat eaters buy from independent farmers for environmental and health reasons.
Dr. Stanley Prusiner, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine and leading expert on Mad Cow disease, considers the number of BSE tests performed by the USDA “appalling.” According to its latest annual report, Europe tests cows at almost 2,000 times the rate of U.S. testing. France, with only a fraction of the U.S. cattle population, tests as many cows in one week as the U.S. has tested in a decade. Prusiner would “like to see every cow tested, just as they do in Japan.”
Others remain unfazed by the Mad Cow incident. Keegan does not believe that the discovery of the disease in the U.S. is comparable to the United Kingdom’s outbreak of Mad Cow, which peaked in 1993 at around 1,000 new cases per week. “Studies projected tens of thousands of cases,” said Keegan, “but that did not happen.”
An Indiana restaurant famous for its deep-fried cow brain sandwiches has not only continued to serve the German delicacy, but also says that customers have continued to order the sandwich since the Mad Cow story emerged in December. “You’re going to die anyway. Either die happy or you die miserable. That’s the German attitude, isn’t it?” said Cecelia Coan, a long-time customer who favors the battered brains.
Wunner believes that the Mad Cow finding “should be a wake-up call to the whole food industry.”
Whether you enjoy eating a large t-bone steak or a tofu burger, the recent Mad Cow scare has opened America’s eyes to a very real health threat that continues to endanger food supplies worldwide.