Mad Cow Disease - More Common Than We Think?

[gmercoleza]

We just picked up a friend from the airport. She related that a common acquaintance died a couple months ago from Mad Cow. According to his wife, the process took about 6 weeks and was a horrible thing to experience. The doctor told his wife he died from vCJD (human variant of BSE). When she researched and learned this was "mad cow disease" she told the doctor it should be reported. The doctor told her "You better just drop this. The government says we do not have mad cow disease. Your husband died of variant creutzfeldt-jakob disease." She did some research and found that in her area alone there were 10 recent deaths from this disease.

It alarms me how the doctors and Uncle Sam appear to be complicit in keeping the disease on the hush hush. But let's face it - reporting large numbers of Mad Cow cases would seriously hurt the domestic beef industry, ala Opra et al. As a heavy consumer of red meat I can't help but be disturbed by this since it is so close to home. The wife is now stuck with two kids and not two dimes to rub together (no life insurance).

Does this bother anybody else? I suppose if 50 people died of vCJD each year, that still amounts to an insignificant percentage of the population of 300 million. But it's still scary.

On another note, it seems that nothing today is safe to eat. Hormones in poultry and pork, BSE in beef, pesticides on fruits and vegetables, contaminated seafood etc. etc. etc. I contemplated switching to dog food for a while, but the recent rash of kidney failures all but killed that idea. I guess lumber and asphalt are still open game...

[GottaDiesel]

First, get ready you're going to get a lot of the stupids with their "foil hat" comments.

Try to relegate them to noise.

To answer your question. Yes it concerns me. I try to keep organic, and I try to eat the right things. In the end the pro-corporate leaders in this nation have sold us and our food supply to the *****-house. We have some of the most contaminated food of any developed nation. Our fish, poultry, and steer are all crap. Mercury, hormone, etc. are all common.

Our produce is crap -- pesticides because most people are too stupid to know what a REAL carrot should look like. If the apple isn't perfect, the morons won't buy them.

What can we do? No much -- grow yer' own?

I don't know. But my heart goes out to your friend.

Pete