MAD COW NEWS

Man dies of CJD after growth treatment as a boy A father has died aged 33 of the human form of mad cow disease after being given hormones as a boy of nine to cure his stunted growth. The hormones were harvested from human corpses. It was not until Barry Metcalf was 22 that he was told they had come from a batch contaminated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. His condition was diagnosed at the beginning of last year and within 11 months he was dead....Senators Enzi and Daschle call for country-of-origin meat labels in wake of mad-cow case President Bush should use emergency regulations to direct the Agriculture Department to adopt country-of-origin meat labeling in the wake of the Washington state mad cow case, Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., say. The senators requested the move Thursday in a letter to the president. The Washington case, which involved a cow born in Canada, "has cast an unfair shadow of uncertainty over the American food industry," the senators wrote. They want rules directing meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the United States to be labeled as "100 percent U.S. beef.".... Consumer groups want more cattle testing Consumer and health groups asked Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Thursday to immediately increase testing of cattle for mad cow disease and establish a mandatory animal identification system for tracking cows and beef cattle. In a meeting with Veneman, the consumer groups said testing for mad cow should include animals as young as 20 months. USDA has said it would focus on animals 30 months and older since its long incubation period — four to five years — means mad cow typically doesn't show up in younger animals. But representatives from the advocacy groups that met with her Thursday — including the American Public Health Association, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Government Accountability Project and Public Citizen — complained the beef industry still has too great a role in the project....U.S. and Canadian officials to meet on mad cow and cattle ban Agriculture Minister Bob Speller says he expects to find out Friday how close U.S. officials are to agreeing to lift their ban on Canadian cattle. But Speller, who's scheduled to meet with both his American and Mexican counterparts, doesn't expect any exact date to emerge from the talks. "Hopefully what I'll get out of the meeting is a commitment to move forward on a process towards opening the border," said Speller. "We've moved lockstep on the science . . . We need that border open." The Canada-U.S. cattle market is highly integrated, with some seven million cows crossing the border in the last five years. Speller, who just returned from Japan and South Korea, said it's hard to sell them on taking Canadian beef products when Canada and the U.S. aren't buying each other's cattle....Mad cow hurting industry, ranchers tell lawmakers The widespread ban on U.S. beef exports because of the mad cow scare is beginning to hurt Colorado cattlemen. Officials with the Colorado Beef Council delivered the sobering news to state lawmakers today even as they said beef sales remain strong. Domestic demand for beef has remained strong enough to push live cattle prices back up to $82 per hundred pounds, said Bob Rolston, a cattle buyer for Maverick Ranch Natural Beef. Prices had been at about $90 last month but the discovery of mad cow sent them tumbling by about $20....FDA Places Six Canadian Feed Plants on Import Alert Since the discovery of mad cow disease in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has placed six Canadian animal feed plants on "import alert" after finding prohibited meat material in its shipments, a spokeswoman said on Thursday. Canadian feed plants owned by Bunge Ltd., Louis Dreyfus, and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool were among those listed by the FDA that must test all feed shipments bound for the United States for traces of animal tissue, the FDA said....More talks eyed on beef import ban Japanese and U.S. farm chiefs agreed Thursday to hold further talks aimed at resuming Japanese imports of U.S. beef as soon as possible, beginning with Washington's plan to dispatch a negotiating team to Tokyo next week. Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshiyuki Kamei and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman reached the agreement during telephone talks in the morning, Japanese government officials said. Details of the planned U.S. delegation were not unveiled, the officials said. After the talks, however, Kamei told reporters that it will be difficult for Japan to lift the import ban at an early date, saying the current U.S. measures to ensure the safety of beef products fall short of Japan's safety standards. In the talks, Kamei told Veneman that in order to lift the import ban, Japanese consumers must be reassured of the safety of U.S. beef. He also briefed her on Japan's safety measures, such as testing all cattle in the country for mad cow disease, and urged the U.S. to take similar steps, according to the officials....USDA quietly declares emergency in Washington state The U.S. Department of Agriculture has quietly declared an "extraordinary emergency" because of the discovery of a Holstein infected with mad cow disease in Washington state - a move that will give federal officials additional authority to quarantine herds and destroy cattle. Agriculture Department officials said the declaration will also make additional funding available for their ongoing investigation and to reimburse farmers for animals that have been destroyed. The declaration was published Monday in the Federal Register, a daily publication of all rules, regulations and notices issued by the federal government....Australian beef prices up 60 percent in Tokyo The United States supplied one third of Japan's beef, but since the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in America, Tokyo has stopped all US beef imports. Shops and restaurants are warning of serious beef shortages. The result has been a 60 per cent increase in the wholesale price of Australian beef, raising fears the soaring price will make the product less palatable in Australia's most valuable market....Italy reports two new cases of mad cow disease Two Italian cows from separate breeding farms in northern Italy have tested positive for mad cow disease - the first cases detected this year, the Health Ministry said Thursday. The country's total is now up to 117 cases, the ministry said. The disease was confirmed by testing done at a Turin zoological institute that serves as the national control centre for the disease. Italy detected its first case in 2001, after the European Union ordered mandatory tests on cattle older than 30 months destined for slaughter. Fifty cows tested positive in 2001, 36 in 2002, and 29 in 2003....Editorial: The Spider At The Center Of The Mad-Cow Web While Luddite intellectual guru Jeremy Rifkin has stayed on the sidelines of the recent mad-cow debate, three of his former employees -- Ronnie Cummins, John Stauber, and Howard Lyman -- have taken the lead in fanning the flames of panic. This trio of scaremongers has a long-standing, Rifkin-inspired "beef" with beef. For them, the discovery of a single case of mad cow disease was simply an opportunity to score PR victories on behalf of their anti-corporate, anti-technology, and animal-rights ideology. Along with his disciples, Rifkin seeks to impose his fringe politics on the dinner plate. He argues that "eating is the ultimate political act" -- taste, value and food safety be damned. Rifkin's campaign against steak and hamburgers began in 1992 with his book, Beyond Beef. He described beef as a "new form of human evil" and a "malevolent force in the world." He falsely blamed it for everything from hunger to global warming to spousal abuse, and even claimed that "a person is committing an evil act by growing feed for cattle or consuming a hamburger."....Mad cow as bioterrorism? Scientists worry that US gov't classification of BSE prions as 'select agents' could hinder research As public interest in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) grows in the United States, strict controls on who is allowed to study could needlessly slow US research on the disease, contend some prion scientists. That's because as part of the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act that recently took effect, BSE prions are considered “select agents” that require special security arrangements, including background checks on anyone who may have access to this material in the lab. The measure, which calls for similar precautions on handling some 80 other select agents, is one of an increasing number of safeguards intended to keep potentially dangerous biological materials out of terrorist hands. However, the background checks and inspections necessary have slowed down certification of labs....UPI Exclusive: No mad cow tests in Wash. Federal agriculture officials did not test any commercial cattle for mad cow disease through the first seven months of 2003 in Washington state -- where the first U.S. case of the disease was detected last month -- according to records obtained by United Press International. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's records of mad cow screenings, conducted on 35,000 animals between 2001 to 2003, also reveal no animals were tested for the past two years at Vern's Moses Lake Meats, the Washington slaughterhouse where the mad cow case was first detected. In addition, no mad cow tests were conducted during the two-year period at any of the six federally registered slaughterhouses in Washington state. This includes Washington's biggest slaughterhouse, Washington Beef in Toppenish -- the 17th largest in the country, which slaughters 290,000 head per year -- and two facilities in Pasco that belong to Tyson, the largest beef slaughtering company in the United States....Big Beef’s Dirty War: Meat industry has resisted cleaning up its act for decades Nonetheless, in some ways the department has strikingly little power over the meat industry compared to that of other government agencies. If it discovers a batch of potentially dangerous meat, the agency cannot order it recalled from supermarket shelves the way, say, toys judged to be choking hazards can be ordered recalled. The USDA can only ask the companies involved to voluntarily recall their tainted product. Most such meat never comes back. According to an analysis of USDA data by the Detroit Free Press, from 1998 through 2000 nearly 109 million pounds of meat and meat products were recalled in the United States, but only 24 percent of that meat was ever recovered. Nor can the USDA even tell consumers which stores might have meat subject to recall sitting on their shelves. Such information is considered the meatpacking companies’ proprietary business information. That secrecy can extend to an appalling degree. In 1999, IBP, a major meatpacking company, recalled 10,000 pounds of ground beef because it was shot through with bits of glass; but neither the company nor the USDA would tell the public which stores had received the extra-crunchy beef....Cowgirls kick off 'Thanks Alberta' campaign The province's best-known cowgirls are tipping their hats to Albertans for their support during the current mad cow crisis. "It's incredible the support we've seen," said Erin Butters, who ranches with her family near Cochrane. Butters, 25, Lenore McLean of High River, and Patti Scott of Sundre were on hand in Calgary yesterday to kick off Alberta Beef's "Thanks Alberta" campaign. Under the program the cattle industry will send postcards to more than a million households in the province to thank consumers for buying beef....Mad cow hits ranchers: Scare has driven down selling price of certain cattle Van Haur sold 6-year-old mother cows in December for $600 each. Today, they'd bring $450 each or less. Using the calculator on his cell phone, he figures his feeder cattle at his uncle's lot in Nebraska that brought $1,100 in early December would sell for $950 to $970 today. He figures he's lucky. "The guys that held off selling until January for tax reasons are sweating," he said. The price swing hasn't hit the breeder cattle market. Van Haur bought a bull for breeding for $5,000 at the stock show, about what he would have paid in December....