The Mad Cow Epidemic that YOU NEED to know about. Could it really be this huge?

Mad Cow Disease- (BSE)- is the Government covering up an epidemic?(1)

Some of my motivation in starting this post stems from losing my Grandfather, a vibrant, 58 year old man, who died from CJD in 1998. It is a horrible disease with a horrible outcome, a death sentence, as there is no cure. We don’t know how he contracted it, as it was labeled “sporadic”, essentially that the cause is unknown. In an attempt to find answers to many questions I have had over the years, I have done my share of research, and found- I am not alone. People- Our lives are all at jeopardy here- and that could be an understatement.

CJD, or Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease is not a reportable illness in many states in the USA. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not actively monitor this disease in the US, therefore it is not improbable that a rise similar to the ones in other countries, namely Britain could be completely missed (1).

For those of you who don’t know, CJD is the human variant of Mad Cow Disease, or BSE. It is a disease which results after infected prions literally eats holes in the brain, leaving it like a sponge.

If you thought concern was only limited to beef (cow) consumption, you may be wrong. Pork is also a potential source of infection, but have any of us heard of that in the news? Cattle remains are still boiled down and legally fed to pigs (as well as chickens) in this country. The FDA allows this exemption because no "naturally occurring" porcine (pig) spongiform encephalopathy has ever been found. But American farmers typically kill pigs at just five months of age, long before the disease is expected to show symptoms. How safe is pork really? Don’t we have the right to know? (6)

In addition, there is reason to believe that many Americans are misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia, who are actually suffering from CJD. That means potentially hundreds of thousands of misdiagnoses per year !(8) Young CJD Deaths seem to also be on the rise, in US (3), and other Countries (4). What is the explanation for this? Their answer is to hide it- and provide none, or a misdiagnosis of MS (multiple sclerosis), or a Virus. We will never really know, and the public has a right to know.

If more states made CJD a reportable illness, there would most definitely be more clusters detected across the United States. And their have been clusters in recent years, that you may not have heard about. CJD clusters have already been found. In the largest known U.S. outbreak of sporadic cases to date, five times the expected rate was found to be associated with cheese consumption in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. A striking increase in CJD over expected levels was also reported in Florida and New York (Nassau County) with anecdotal reports of clusters of deaths in Oregon and New Jersey. (1)

We need to demand for much more testing, as well. This quote is from a woman in the USA who lost her mother to CJD “No BSE in the U.S.A.? I would not be so sure of that considering that Since 1990 the U.S. has raised 1,250,880,700 cattle; the U.S. has ONLY checked 8,881 cattle brains for BSE, as of Oct. 4, 1999” (5). To those of you who don’t know what that means, that is only .00071 % THAT IS NOTHING!! Actually, That is less than Nothing. That is only seven ten thousandths of 1 %. That is a minute number for all of us who have taken basic math, one might even ignore such a number in many instances, as an irrelevant margin of error.

Who are they trying to kid?

We deserve, as the British, Canadians, - Japanese, Koreans are still very concerned about importing non-organic US beef… The USDA is actually preventing US Meatpackers, who want to perform volunteer testing, the ability to do so (7)(9) This is outrageous. We went to war over a loss of 3000 precious lives on 9/11, but we have our own war waging here, right in our own country, possibly killing hundreds of thousands of Americans annually. Where are their priorities?

So- what can we do?

We need to encourage every single state in the US to change their laws demanding that CJD become a “reportable illness” so there is some way to track it. That is very important.

We need to demand that their be more testing done, on all animals, for all forms of BSE variants. And, the testing must be in accordance to the WTO (World Trade Organization).

The US actually had the audacity to DECREASE testing by 90% READ HERE: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_1207.cfm - THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!!! The Agriculture Department still prohibits companies from doing their own volunteer tests.

The U.S. should immediately begin testing all cows destined for human consumption, as is done in Japan, should stop feeding slaughterhouse waste to all farm animals (see http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm), and should immediately enact an active national surveillance program for CJD.(1)

To read more:

(9) http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3481.cfm

(8) http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_2142.cfm

(7) http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_2395.cfm

(6) http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/pigs_chickens.html

(5) http://www.freedomtocare.org/page142.htm

(3) http://www.prwatch.org/node/1161

(4) http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/cjd52104.cfm

(1) http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0107-07.htm