No, it was not. That is still the method they use to kill cows. They ram a
4 inch steel bolt through their skull then inject a blast of compressed air to destroy the rest of the brain. During this the brain matter gets propelled into the cow. Then in the final step the carcass is split in two along the spinal cord further spreading nerve tissue.Paul
So it doesn't become a really, really real issue.
Paul
So Tom, are you volunteering for a case of BSE?
Paul
Sure would suck ass though if you were one of the poor suckers to get sick. BSE is not curable. And there is not 1 thing you can do to safeguard yourself. You cannot cook it away like you can other pathogens. Suggestions of voluntary cooperation by meat packers is the stuff I'd expect to see on Jay Leno.
Paul
Don't know. Don't care. Don't want to know.
Like hot dogs. Would like to continue enjoying them. So give us some spoiler space if anyone is going to pull back the curtain.
Brain matter gets propelled? What PSI are they using? How much air pressure does it take to blow brain bits through the head and neck of a cow to get into the tasty bits? Sounds like Lee Harvey Oswald must be holding the air blower.
Ya know? We *really* need Chris Taylor in on this thread...
tah
Why? As 'poster boy' for the effects of BSE?!?
David Erbas-White
If I sign this, mosquitos and ticks will be required to leave me alone?
Trout and salmon are mostly farm-raised, and this petition won't convert them into vegetarians.
As written, the petition isn't specific to mammals. It isn't clear if it is specific to animals raised for food--that's mentioned in the preamble, but not in the list of measures suggested. I personally believe that Sigfried and Roy's white tigers have suffered enough without forcing them to go on a tofu and sprouts diet...
Gary
Well yeah, there's that, but I was hoping that his "stone cold, unemotional" brand of logic could help solve this dietary mayhem...
Tod "Aw Mom! Prions for dinner again?!" Hilty
I don't know about the U.S., but I *personally* know someone who died from the human form of BSE (Creuzfeldt-Jakob) about 10 years ago.
BSE, and related illnesses in other ruminants (sheep and deer get the same disease, but it's called something else) are transmitted through special forms of proteins called "prions" (or perhaps "pryons"). These protein-like entities are currently poorly understood, but what *is* understood is that ordinary cooking techniques don't destroy them.
The talking heads of the media, like Wolf "The Beard" Blitzer need to be aware of this. It was driving me nuts the other day when he and Gupta were babbling about Mad Cow, and Blitzer kept constantly referring to the active agent as a "virus"... with no correction from Sanjay...
tah
Isn't there some hypothesis that prions may also play some part in Alzheimer's disease?
-dave w
snipped-for-privacy@weinerboy.org wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.news.adelphia.net:
We've had a bunch of cases of bacterial meningitis in New England the past few weeks, and some newscasters have referred to it being caused by a "virus"...
len.
Yep, but a apparently a different one...
From:
tah
ROTFL!!!!!
Randy
All things concidered, I trust beef processing more than chicken processing.
Alan
Isn't that where they make "de-boned" chicken meat for sausage etc. by running the whole chicken carcass through a pulverizer?
-dave w
According to Marcus Leech :
When a human catches BSE it's called Variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or VCJD for short. It's not known for sure whether the varieties of CJDs from varying source species are the same prion, but they work the same, so they probably are.
"Regular" (spontaneous origin, not animal origin) CJD kills about 5 Canadians a year, presumably about 50 Americans/year, and is apparently distinguishable from an animal-source VCJD (once the victim is dead...).
I have read of Americans dying from VCJD over the years, but each of the reports seemed to indicate they were satisified it was deer origin.
BSE also appears in cattle spontaneously, and apparently they can tell the difference between food-origin and spontaneous BSE. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough left of the first Canadian cow to tell the difference by the time they knew about it. So they were unable to tell whether the first one was spontaneous or not.
With the second one, hopefully they can.
[It's been sounding very much to me that this disease spontaneously pops up in individuals from time to time, and as long as they aren't eaten, it doesn't spread, and hence you'd never hear of it. Feeding animals to animals is what's causing our problems now.]PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.