NationStates Jolt Archive

Koreans have been protesting the resumption of US Beef imports.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/05/content_8317949.htm

So I am curious about NSG opinions regarding the safety of American Beef.
My understanding is 11 years ago we had two cows infected with mad cow disease and they had came from Canada. But anyone got anything else to discuss.


Any Koreans on I would especially want your opinion of the matter.

I just was lectured about this in Biology class at school.

There has not been mad cow found in USA born and raised cows. Only from canadian and British cows and those cases were far and few between. Not to mention the fact that because Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy(BSE aka"mad cow") is a prion disease, you must directly consume it to be infected. It is not airborne. Nor is it alive, however prions are virtually impossible to destroy. Prions are almost exclusivly found in the brain and spinal column. If hte cow appears healthy and you don't handle the brain or spinal column, you should be fine.
The problem in Britain in 1989 with that large outbreak, was the fact that they were eating the brains when they put them in head cheese.
In short, with proper precaution measures, beef should be safe from anywhere especially the USA.

I like it and that tends to be my view, but for us non Bio majors can we get a few sources posted or at least a wiki or two.

Not to mention the fact that because Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy(BSE aka"mad cow") is a prion disease, you must directly consume it to be infected.
It's my understanding that a human cannot contract BSE, but that the disease is related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and what's known as 'variant-CJD' which seems to affect young humans; nasty stuff.

There's more info here: here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt-Jakob_disease).

The moral of the story kids: Don't feed your cow bits of dead cow.

Is it weird that when i first read this i read 'Use Beef and Satay'?

If it's not Iraq, it's our beef.

Can we have a "Give America a Break" Day or something? This isn't very good for our self-esteem.

I always thought American beef was pumped full of steroids and tasteless - until I went there and tried it........hhmmmmm...........big juicy American steak......:)

I would never be worried about BSE over there. I didn't even worry about it in the UK (most people kept eating beef regardless of any threat)

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I think that those nations that have had problems with BSE in the past are probably the least likely to have it again now. The British beef industry, for example, simply couldn't afford to have another outbreak, as it would destroy the industry once and for all. As such, they have some of the strongest measures in the world to prevent it.

I don't know about American beef, but I would trust it a lot more than Korean beef.

It's just being used to justify keeping import tarrifs and quotas on US beef in order to protect Korean farmers. Nothing else.
I read somewhere that twice as many farmers in the UK committed suicide due to mad cow disease ruining their livelihoods than people contracted CJD during the same time.
Mad cow disease is a great example of fear-mongering at it's best.

Accusing American beef of containing mad cow disease or being tasteless is just ridiculous. Still, I'm glad we don't import it because they pump the beef full of steroids and antibiotics in the US.

If it's not Iraq, it's our beef.

Can we have a "Give America a Break" Day or something? This isn't very good for our self-esteem.

No, cause then people will actually have to think for themselves...

OKAY PEOPLE! BANDWAGON ENDS HERE! NOT EVERYTHING IS AMERICAS FAULT! WE ARE OVER YOU BLAMING THEM.

HA! I don't eat US beef! Only chicken! *Bites head off chicken*

It's my understanding that a human cannot contract BSE, but that the disease is related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and what's known as 'variant-CJD' which seems to affect young humans; nasty stuff.

There's more info here: here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt-Jakob_disease).

The moral of the story kids: Don't feed your cow bits of dead cow.

correct and correct. BSE prions affect their human analogues, and so you get vCJD.

It's my understanding that a human cannot contract BSE, but that the disease is related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and what's known as 'variant-CJD' which seems to affect young humans; nasty stuff.

There's more info here: here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt-Jakob_disease).

The moral of the story kids: Don't feed your cow bits of dead cow.

I know that Creurtzfeldt-Jakob is basically human spongiform encephalopathy, it my understanding from the lectures that BSE and Creutzfeldt... are basically the same thing in different animals.

As to the moral of the story, you are correct.

Interestingly enough, prion diseases in humans were actually first studied in depth by the Nazi. That is why many of them(except Kuru) have German names.

Accusing American beef of containing mad cow disease or being tasteless is just ridiculous. Still, I'm glad we don't import it because they pump the beef full of steroids and antibiotics in the US.

That is true unfortunatly. The anti-biotics are the big problem. It is causing anti-biotic resistant strains.

I just was lectured about this in Biology class at school.

There has not been mad cow found in USA born and raised cows. Only from canadian and British cows and those cases were far and few between. Not to mention the fact that because Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy(BSE aka"mad cow") is a prion disease, you must directly consume it to be infected. It is not airborne. Nor is it alive, however prions are virtually impossible to destroy. Prions are almost exclusivly found in the brain and spinal column. If hte cow appears healthy and you don't handle the brain or spinal column, you should be fine.
The problem in Britain in 1989 with that large outbreak, was the fact that they were eating the brains when they put them in head cheese.
In short, with proper precaution measures, beef should be safe from anywhere especially the USA.

This is what I understood as well.

Also-wasnt there a concern about beef by products-like the brain and spinal tissue- being used in feed for pigs?
I know there was concern the prions could be transferred that way as well.

Also- I dont recall if its been proven or just feared that prions could be transmitted in bone meal products for gardening.
I dont know if that had been ruled out.

I just was lectured about this in Biology class at school.

There has not been mad cow found in USA born and raised cows. Only from Canadian and British cows and those cases were far and few between. Not to mention the fact that because Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy(BSE aka"mad cow") is a prion disease, you must directly consume it to be infected. It is not airborne. Nor is it alive, however prions are virtually impossible to destroy. Prions are almost exclusively found in the brain and spinal column. If the cow appears healthy and you don't handle the brain or spinal column, you should be fine.
The problem in Britain in 1989 with that large outbreak, was the fact that they were eating the brains when they put them in head cheese.
In short, with proper precaution measures, beef should be safe from anywhere especially the USA.

Isn't that the problem, though? That modern feedlots & slaughterhouses don't take proper precautions? Brains and spinal columns shouldn't be ending up in hamburger, but neither should large amounts of salmonella and E. coli, since in a healthy cow those are inside the intestine, (hence the name "coli",) not inside the muscle tissue.

i am guessing we don't have any Koreans on NSG.

Isn't that the problem, though? That modern feedlots & slaughterhouses don't take proper precautions? Brains and spinal columns shouldn't be ending up in hamburger, but neither should large amounts of salmonella and E. coli, since in a healthy cow those are inside the intestine, (hence the name "coli",) not inside the muscle tissue.

That is the problem. With proper precaution, there would not be these problems, or they would occur very very rarely.

Read "Fast Food Nation". It will give you many reasons to question the safety of US beef. It's not all about mad cow. Salmonella and E-Coli are very nasty.

Read "Fast Food Nation". It will give you many reasons to question the safety of US beef. It's not all about mad cow. Salmonella and E-Coli are very nasty.

I used to work as a knocker and i can honestly say. that movie had to show the worst plant in the US, the two i worked at were pretty clean and we constantly had fear of a surprise inspection.