MAD COW DISEASE

Group: U.S. not protected against mad cow

Researchers and the nation's No. 1 burger seller say the government is not fully protecting animals or people from mad cow disease. Stronger steps are needed to keep infection from entering the food chain for cattle, the critics wrote in comments to the Food and Drug Administration. The group includes McDonald's Corp., seven scientists and experts and a pharmaceutical supplier, Serologicals Corp. The government proposed new safeguards two months ago, but researchers said that effort "falls woefully short" and would continue to let cattle eat potentially infected feed, the primary way mad cow disease is spread. "We do not feel that we can overstate the dangers from the insidious threat from these diseases and the need to control and arrest them to prevent any possibility of spread," the researchers wrote. McDonald's said the risk of exposure to the disease should be reduced to zero, or as close as possible. "It is our opinion that the government can take further action to reduce this risk," wrote company Vice President Dick Crawford....

Mad cow class action to continue

A $20B mad cow class action lawsuit pitting farmers against a feed grain company and the federal government can continue, an Ontario Superior Court judge has decided. Last week, Justice Warren Winkler dismissed a motion from Ottawa and feed grain manufacturer Ridley Inc. to quash the claim launched by an Ontario dairy cow owner on behalf of himself and about 100,000 cattle farmers. However, the judge did dismiss the farmers' claim against the majority owner of Ridley Inc. – Ridley Corporation Ltd., an Australian company. The damages claimed are in excess of $20 billion. The proposed class action in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec, was launched in April. The farmers allege the federal goverment and Ridley were negligent in allowing tainted cattle feed to be sold in Canada....

Korea likely to ease ban on U.S. beef

Korea and the United States began talks yesterday to discuss conditions for the resumption of American beef imports, government officials said. The two-day meeting is expected to cover outstanding issues related to Korea's reopening of its market to U.S. beef, they said. The negotiations come after Seoul virtually decided to resume imports of U.S. beef last month. Korea banned American beef shipments in December 2003 when a confirmed case of mad cow disease was reported in the United States. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said both sides will outline their views on when the imports should resume and what cuts of beef should be allowed. Other issues that are expected to be discussed include the age of cattle that can be slaughtered to produce meat for the Korean market, the ministry said....

In Japan, American Beef Is Once Again on the Menu

At Yakiniku Den, a crowded restaurant in this western Japanese city, Kosei Ishishita and his family are getting their first taste in two years of American beef. "To be honest, I'm still not 100 percent confident that U.S. beef is safe," said Mr. Ishishita, a 32-year-old sushi chef. "Somewhere inside of me, I'm worried. But now that I've tasted it, I have to admit that I want to eat more." American beef is reappearing on Japanese tables and supermarket shelves for the first time since Tokyo banned it in December 2003 after the discovery of mad cow disease in a dairy cow in Washington State. Tokyo lifted the ban in mid-December after a food safety commission ruled that American safety measures were now adequate. So far, the reaction here to the first shipments of American beef has been mixed. While some restaurants and grocery stores have rushed to put it on sale, others have refused to serve it. At the same time, most Japanese say they remain concerned about safety. In a poll in early December by Kyodo News, 75.2 percent of respondents said they were unwilling to eat American beef. Winning back Japanese consumers is important for the American beef industry. Before the ban, American beef was popular here as a low-cost alternative to expensive Japanese beef, and this was the largest overseas market for American ranchers. In 2002, the last full year before Tokyo banned imports, Japan consumed 240,000 tons of American beef, according to the Ministry of Agriculture in Japan, about a quarter of all American beef exports....

History of human cannibalism eats away at researchers

In a new study published by the journal Genome Research, a team of scientists reports that ’mad cow’-like diseases have not been a major force in human history, nor have been cannibalistic rituals that are known to be associated with disease transmission. Prof. Jaume Bertranpetit, a scientist at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and his colleagues used a fresh set of genetic data to show that balancing selection associated with cannibalism has not been a major selective driving force on the prion protein gene, as has recently been proposed. Their work also has important scientific implications for researchers using a specific class of DNA markers called SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) to examine genetic associations with diseases or to evaluate historical patterns of human migration. The prion protein gene (PRNP) encodes a protein that can abnormally fold and amass in brain tissues to cause fatal neurodegenerative diseases such as mad cow disease. These diseases are cumulatively known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) and in humans, include CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) and kuru. Kuru is confined to a human population in Papua-New Guinea and is transmitted by cannibalism at ritualistic mortuary feasts....

Impact Of Chronic Wasting Disease On Humans

Ralph M. Garruto, professor of biomedical anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York, is heading up a study to monitor the health implications of a group of people who are known to have consumed venison infected with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). Recently discovered in both wild and captive deer herds in New York, CWD is similar to mad cow disease in that it concentrates in the spinal cord and brain, and is caused by a virtually indestructible mutated protein called a prion: "We don't know if CWD can be transmitted to humans. So this group, some of whom we know for sure ate infected meat, offers us a unique opportunity. I'm hoping the study will allow us to determine if this disease can affect humans in the same way mad cow disease has been shown to cause neurological disease in those who consume infected beef." The study focuses on a group of people who attended a Sportman's feast in Verona, N.Y., in spring 2005....