The almost ubiquitous nature of beef and beef products in the food chain leaves a tremendous amount of room for unscrupulous live animal wholesalers to sneak "downer cattle" into the slaughter houses. But what risk do those downer cattle impose upon us? Is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy a real risk? Or might it represent a pumped up means of garnering headline splash in a time when Brittany falling off the wagon or multi-car pileups dominate our visual news space. In that vein, how many documented cases of BSE have been recorded on American soil? That is, how real is the threat?
First off, the term for BSE is Variant Jacob Creutzfeldt disease or VJCD. And according to the CDC:
"Since variant CJD was first reported in 1996, a total of 200 patients with this disease from 11 countries have been identified. As of November 2006, variant CJD cases have been reported from the following countries: 164 from the United Kingdom, 21 from France, 4 from Ireland, 3 from the United States, 2 in the Netherlands, and one each from Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. Two of the three U.S. cases, two of the four cases from Ireland and the single cases from Canada and Japan were likely exposed to the BSE agent while residing in the United Kingdom. One of the 20 French cases may also have been infected in the United Kingdom."
However much fuss we make about the despicable nature of mistreating cows near the end of their lives at meat packing/slaughter houses, the real threat is to our sensibilities and care of fellow creatures than the risk of contracting a disease. As unsavory as the pictures were from the Humane Society last week, the real threat is one of animal rights.
Thus I make an almost silent plea to those of you still eating beef. Let old cows die in peace on a sunny day in the middle of a clover patch, not at the hands of a fork lift operator. If fewer of us eat beef and beef products, the need to push aging dairy cattle into the beef pipeline might dry up.
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