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Compounding USDA's lax practices has been its refusal to allow beef processors to independently test cattle for mad cow disease. In 2004, Creekstone Farms, a Ka

by admash 5y ago

Compounding USDA's lax practices has been its refusal to allow beef processors to independently test cattle for mad cow disease. In 2004, Creekstone Farms, a Kansas processor of black Angus beef with a large Japanese clientele, asked for permission to test its 300,000 cattle for BSE using a $500,000 testing site it had built to USDA specifications. But the agency ruled that the BSE test was licensed only for "surveillance" of animal health, and rejected Creekstone's request because it implied "a consumer safety aspect" that was "not scientifically warranted." https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/uoia-ftf051506.php https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/uoia-ftf0515...

admash 5y ago
The “fun” question is whether prions are present in milk and other dairy products. One might argue that they are not, by virtue of them being largely localized to neural tissue. Of course, this raises the question of how CWD is being transmitted in elk, since elk don’t eat elk. “Scientists believe CWD proteins (prions) likely spread between animals through body fluids like feces, saliva, blood, or urine, either through direct contact or indirectly through environmental contamination of soil, food or water.” https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html Milk is clearly a body fluid, though is curiously absent from the above statement. And as other comments about the difficulty of sterilizing prions make clear, pasteurization will have no effect.
- jtdev 5y ago
  Prions persist in soil for years; elk eat where other elk have deposited prions.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Years? Oh jeez. The soil is covered with brain eating murder proteins?
    - robbiep 5y ago
      CWD was innoculated in a deer by insuflating prion bound with clay
      - TheGallopedHigh 5y ago
        Insuflation: the act of blowing on or breathing on
        titanomachy 5y ago
        In this case likely means inhalation through the nose
        Turing_Machine 5y ago
        Yeah, the sense of smell is a basal one. The nasal cavity has bazillions of nerve endings that are almost directly wired to the brain. That's why so many drugs are snorted. It works faster than just about anything else other than direct intravenous injection.
        robbiep 5y ago
        That’s not at all why drugs work quickly through the nose - it has absolutely nothing to do with nerve endings, it has everything to do with a large surface area of mucus membranes allowing quick uptake into the venous system.
        Y_Y 5y ago
        It's just a fancy form of the word "snuffle".
- dnautics 5y ago
  They arent just localized to neural tissue; they are in high concentration in the tongue, which is probably why grazing animals are so susceptible
reaperducer 5y ago
Considering the history of the meat industry, I'm OK with not allowing the farms to police themselves.
- jtdev 5y ago
  Considering the history of the USDA, I’m not okay with the USDA having final say in determining what I or my family put on the dinner table.
  - NationalPark 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ag... This?
    - jtdev 5y ago
      No, I'm referring to the regulatory capture and revolving door culture at USDA that has allowed Monsanto et. al., to douse your kids cereal with glyphosate, refuse hemp production in the U.S., water down the Organic Governance Board with corporate shills, etc., etc.
- macksd 5y ago
  I think there's a pretty fundamental difference between "allowing farms to police themselves" and actually prohibiting them from doing voluntary testing for diseases. I would compare it to the difference between eliminating a need for prescriptions and prohibiting people from getting screened for skin cancer on the regular. Is there a better reason to prohibit voluntary testing than what is included in the article?
  - rapind 5y ago
    Are they being prohibited from testing though, or just prohibited from making safety claims based on those tests?
creamytaco 5y ago
I stopped eating US beef many years ago for this very reason. The Japanese are not stupid and it's quite obvious that something fishy is going on. Knowing what we know about the practices of most US beef farms and the countless USDA failures in both detection and enforcement of rules/regulations meant to protect the consumer, I think it's the wise path to take for everyone living here.
- Google234 5y ago
  Q. Why can't we test all beef for BSE safety? A. BSE tests are not conducted on cuts of meat, but involve taking samples from the brain of a dead animal to see if the infectious agent is present. We know that the earliest point at which current tests can accurately detect BSE is 2-to-3 months before the animal begins to show symptoms. The time between initial infection and the appearance of symptoms is about 5 years. Since most cattle that go to slaughter in the United States are both young and clinically normal, testing all slaughter cattle for BSE might offer misleading assurances of safety to the public. The BSE surveillance program is not for the purposes of determining food safety. Rather, it is an animal health surveillance program. USDA's BSE surveillance program allows USDA to detect the disease if it exists at very low levels in the U.S. cattle population and provides assurances to consumers and our international trading partners that the interlocking system of safeguards in place to prevent BSE are working.
R0b0t1 5y ago
This is pretty messed up. As long as you meet legal requirements any additional testing should be permissible, caveat emptor.
mannerheim 5y ago
This is an incomplete description of the USDA's rationale. Although I agree that there shouldn't be a ban on private testing, the USDA's position is that BSE testing is ineffective at the time most cows are slaughtered, and would therefore provide an unwarranted impression of safety. > NOT A FOOD SAFETY TEST > BSE tests are not conducted on cuts of meat, but involve taking samples from the brain of a dead animal to see if the infectious agent is present. We know that the earliest point at which current tests can accurately detect BSE is 2-to-3 months before the animal begins to show symptoms. The time between initial infection and the appearance of symptoms is about 5 years. Since most cattle that go to slaughter in the United States are both young and clinically normal, testing all slaughter cattle for BSE might offer misleading assurances of safety to the public. > ... > Why doesn't USDA test every animal at slaughter? > There is currently no test to detect the disease in a live animal. BSE is confirmed by taking samples from the brain of an animal and testing to see if the infectious agent - the abnormal form of the prion protein - is present. The earliest point at which current tests can accurately detect BSE is 2 to 3 months before the animal begins to show symptoms, and the time between initial infection and the appearance of symptoms is about 5 years. Therefore, there is a long period of time during which current tests would not be able to detect the disease in an infected animal. > Since most cattle are slaughtered in the United States at a young age, they are in that period where tests would not be able to detect the disease if present. Testing all slaughter cattle for BSE could produce an exceedingly high rate of false negative test results and offer misleading assurances of the presence or absence of disease. > Simply put, the most effective way to detect BSE is not to test all animals, which could lead to false security, but to test those animals most likely to have the disease, which is the basis of USDA's current program. https://www.usda.gov/topics/animals/bse-surveillance-information-center https://www.usda.gov/topics/animals/bse-surveillance-informa...
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Thank you for the context!
- rvba 5y ago
  Sounds like a way to not test anything at all. I really try to stay away from politics, but sounds as something made by some bribed political appointment.
caymanjim 5y ago
> But the agency ruled that the BSE test was licensed only for "surveillance" of animal health, and rejected Creekstone's request because it implied "a consumer safety aspect" that was "not scientifically warranted." I read this as "you can test your animals if you want to, but you can't then use the results to make any claim or statement about them". I suspect they're free to test their animals, but not free to stamp "100% tested BSE-free beef!" on their steaks. I suspect this is what's meant by "surveillance". If that's the case, I agree with the gov't; private testing shouldn't be used to make claims. But it could be used for internal product safety, and if anything comes back positive, the USDA could be brought in to verify and take action. It's not entirely clear to me from the article.
eganp 5y ago
The risk of cow->human BSE transmission is infinitesimal. Species barriers in prions are surprisingly strong and, for practical purposes, nearly impermeable [0]. In fact, the Prion Protein (PrP) in humans causes multiple distinct diseases including CJD, Kuru, and FFI. Infectious prion confirmations are probably highly influenced by glycosylation [1,2]. Even if this testing wasn't god awfully slow, it's unclear one learns anything from it. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736662/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736662/ [1] https://www.cureffi.org/2013/05/05/prion-protein-n-linked-glycosylation-review-and-assessment-of-therapeutic-potential/ https://www.cureffi.org/2013/05/05/prion-protein-n-linked-gl... [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.14.431014v2 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.14.431014v2
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  >The risk of cow->human BSE transmission is infinitesimal. I don't think your sources support this conclusion. bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) rarely passes the species barrier, but it is difficult, if not impossible to estimate what the rate is in the absence of mitigations.
  - Google234 5y ago
    Don’t we know already? In the UK weren’t millions of cows infected and eaten for years with only a few hundred human transmissions?
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      There are a plethora of unknowns that make it very difficult to check transmission rate. Transmission is rare, but this could be impacted by lots of factors. There were hundreds of thousands of cows in the UK, but there were also testing and culling programs to try to prevent them from entering the food supply. There were also regulations on which parts of the cows could be used for human consumption. Last but not least, there are huge uncertainties around the diagnosis rate of mad cow in humans. For example, a 2013 study (1) found that 1 in 2000 people in the UK now have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Based on this, it could be possible that transmission rates are very high if a human were to eat mad cow nervous tissue. 1) https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5675.full https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5675.full

by admash 5y ago

admash 5y ago

The “fun” question is whether prions are present in milk and other dairy products. One might argue that they are not, by virtue of them being largely localized to neural tissue. Of course, this raises the question of how CWD is being transmitted in elk, since elk don’t eat elk. “Scientists believe CWD proteins (prions) likely spread between animals through body fluids like feces, saliva, blood, or urine, either through direct contact or indirectly through environmental contamination of soil, food or water.” https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html Milk is clearly a body fluid, though is curiously absent from the above statement. And as other comments about the difficulty of sterilizing prions make clear, pasteurization will have no effect.

jtdev 5y ago
Prions persist in soil for years; elk eat where other elk have deposited prions.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Years? Oh jeez. The soil is covered with brain eating murder proteins?
  - robbiep 5y ago
    CWD was innoculated in a deer by insuflating prion bound with clay
    - TheGallopedHigh 5y ago
      Insuflation: the act of blowing on or breathing on
      - titanomachy 5y ago
        In this case likely means inhalation through the nose
        Turing_Machine 5y ago
        Yeah, the sense of smell is a basal one. The nasal cavity has bazillions of nerve endings that are almost directly wired to the brain. That's why so many drugs are snorted. It works faster than just about anything else other than direct intravenous injection.
        robbiep 5y ago
        That’s not at all why drugs work quickly through the nose - it has absolutely nothing to do with nerve endings, it has everything to do with a large surface area of mucus membranes allowing quick uptake into the venous system.
      - Y_Y 5y ago
        It's just a fancy form of the word "snuffle".
dnautics 5y ago
They arent just localized to neural tissue; they are in high concentration in the tongue, which is probably why grazing animals are so susceptible

reaperducer 5y ago

Considering the history of the meat industry, I'm OK with not allowing the farms to police themselves.

jtdev 5y ago
Considering the history of the USDA, I’m not okay with the USDA having final say in determining what I or my family put on the dinner table.
- NationalPark 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ag... This?
  - jtdev 5y ago
    No, I'm referring to the regulatory capture and revolving door culture at USDA that has allowed Monsanto et. al., to douse your kids cereal with glyphosate, refuse hemp production in the U.S., water down the Organic Governance Board with corporate shills, etc., etc.
macksd 5y ago
I think there's a pretty fundamental difference between "allowing farms to police themselves" and actually prohibiting them from doing voluntary testing for diseases. I would compare it to the difference between eliminating a need for prescriptions and prohibiting people from getting screened for skin cancer on the regular. Is there a better reason to prohibit voluntary testing than what is included in the article?
- rapind 5y ago
  Are they being prohibited from testing though, or just prohibited from making safety claims based on those tests?

creamytaco 5y ago

I stopped eating US beef many years ago for this very reason. The Japanese are not stupid and it's quite obvious that something fishy is going on. Knowing what we know about the practices of most US beef farms and the countless USDA failures in both detection and enforcement of rules/regulations meant to protect the consumer, I think it's the wise path to take for everyone living here.

Google234 5y ago
Q. Why can't we test all beef for BSE safety? A. BSE tests are not conducted on cuts of meat, but involve taking samples from the brain of a dead animal to see if the infectious agent is present. We know that the earliest point at which current tests can accurately detect BSE is 2-to-3 months before the animal begins to show symptoms. The time between initial infection and the appearance of symptoms is about 5 years. Since most cattle that go to slaughter in the United States are both young and clinically normal, testing all slaughter cattle for BSE might offer misleading assurances of safety to the public. The BSE surveillance program is not for the purposes of determining food safety. Rather, it is an animal health surveillance program. USDA's BSE surveillance program allows USDA to detect the disease if it exists at very low levels in the U.S. cattle population and provides assurances to consumers and our international trading partners that the interlocking system of safeguards in place to prevent BSE are working.

R0b0t1 5y ago

This is pretty messed up. As long as you meet legal requirements any additional testing should be permissible, caveat emptor.

mannerheim 5y ago

This is an incomplete description of the USDA's rationale. Although I agree that there shouldn't be a ban on private testing, the USDA's position is that BSE testing is ineffective at the time most cows are slaughtered, and would therefore provide an unwarranted impression of safety. > NOT A FOOD SAFETY TEST > BSE tests are not conducted on cuts of meat, but involve taking samples from the brain of a dead animal to see if the infectious agent is present. We know that the earliest point at which current tests can accurately detect BSE is 2-to-3 months before the animal begins to show symptoms. The time between initial infection and the appearance of symptoms is about 5 years. Since most cattle that go to slaughter in the United States are both young and clinically normal, testing all slaughter cattle for BSE might offer misleading assurances of safety to the public. > ... > Why doesn't USDA test every animal at slaughter? > There is currently no test to detect the disease in a live animal. BSE is confirmed by taking samples from the brain of an animal and testing to see if the infectious agent - the abnormal form of the prion protein - is present. The earliest point at which current tests can accurately detect BSE is 2 to 3 months before the animal begins to show symptoms, and the time between initial infection and the appearance of symptoms is about 5 years. Therefore, there is a long period of time during which current tests would not be able to detect the disease in an infected animal. > Since most cattle are slaughtered in the United States at a young age, they are in that period where tests would not be able to detect the disease if present. Testing all slaughter cattle for BSE could produce an exceedingly high rate of false negative test results and offer misleading assurances of the presence or absence of disease. > Simply put, the most effective way to detect BSE is not to test all animals, which could lead to false security, but to test those animals most likely to have the disease, which is the basis of USDA's current program. https://www.usda.gov/topics/animals/bse-surveillance-information-center https://www.usda.gov/topics/animals/bse-surveillance-informa...

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Thank you for the context!
rvba 5y ago
Sounds like a way to not test anything at all. I really try to stay away from politics, but sounds as something made by some bribed political appointment.

caymanjim 5y ago

> But the agency ruled that the BSE test was licensed only for "surveillance" of animal health, and rejected Creekstone's request because it implied "a consumer safety aspect" that was "not scientifically warranted." I read this as "you can test your animals if you want to, but you can't then use the results to make any claim or statement about them". I suspect they're free to test their animals, but not free to stamp "100% tested BSE-free beef!" on their steaks. I suspect this is what's meant by "surveillance". If that's the case, I agree with the gov't; private testing shouldn't be used to make claims. But it could be used for internal product safety, and if anything comes back positive, the USDA could be brought in to verify and take action. It's not entirely clear to me from the article.

eganp 5y ago

The risk of cow->human BSE transmission is infinitesimal. Species barriers in prions are surprisingly strong and, for practical purposes, nearly impermeable [0]. In fact, the Prion Protein (PrP) in humans causes multiple distinct diseases including CJD, Kuru, and FFI. Infectious prion confirmations are probably highly influenced by glycosylation [1,2]. Even if this testing wasn't god awfully slow, it's unclear one learns anything from it. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736662/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736662/ [1] https://www.cureffi.org/2013/05/05/prion-protein-n-linked-glycosylation-review-and-assessment-of-therapeutic-potential/ https://www.cureffi.org/2013/05/05/prion-protein-n-linked-gl... [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.14.431014v2 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.14.431014v2

s1artibartfast 5y ago
>The risk of cow->human BSE transmission is infinitesimal. I don't think your sources support this conclusion. bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) rarely passes the species barrier, but it is difficult, if not impossible to estimate what the rate is in the absence of mitigations.
- Google234 5y ago
  Don’t we know already? In the UK weren’t millions of cows infected and eaten for years with only a few hundred human transmissions?
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    There are a plethora of unknowns that make it very difficult to check transmission rate. Transmission is rare, but this could be impacted by lots of factors. There were hundreds of thousands of cows in the UK, but there were also testing and culling programs to try to prevent them from entering the food supply. There were also regulations on which parts of the cows could be used for human consumption. Last but not least, there are huge uncertainties around the diagnosis rate of mad cow in humans. For example, a 2013 study (1) found that 1 in 2000 people in the UK now have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Based on this, it could be possible that transmission rates are very high if a human were to eat mad cow nervous tissue. 1) https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5675.full https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5675.full