"The actual numeric risk of mad cow is not high at all, but the concern understandably is," said Murray Lumpkin, a senior Food and Drug Administration medical adviser. "This is a disease that is life-threatening, that involves food eaten frequently and fed to our children, and is invisible to the consumer. It hits all the hot buttons."
What I don't get is why anybody would still be feeding their cattle animal protein in the first place. It's been shown to be dangerous in several countries in Europe (every one of them, of course, certain that "it could never happen here") and yet ranchers seem unwilling to discontinue the practice.
"... The FDA stopped the practice of feeding bits of cows, sheep and related animals to American cattle in 1997, and officials say these precautions have so far protected American animals and consumers from the disease.
"But the FDA has found that compliance with the regulations is inconsistent. The agency announced last month, for instance, that 28 percent of the rendering plants that grind cattle parts into bits were not able to entirely prevent "commingling" of those bits with cattle feed. In feed mills, which prepare ground food for many different animals on different diets, 20 percent of plants did not have proper labels cautioning handlers of the presence of ground animal parts.
I'm not a vegetarian, and I likes me a good burger, but this sort of thing really makes me wonder about our cattle industry.
(23:09 EST, Thursday, 8 February 2001.)
