No one in America can categorically say "Beef is safe"

I got into a nice little rant on CJD Voice today, and thought it needed to be shared with the rest of the world:

It drives me nuts to hear people say "beef is safe," and I've heard it dozens of times since yesterday. I do not think anyone in this country can give such a categorical statement that beef is safe. I think there is a proper answer to that question, which no one has yet given. It is:

You need to look for SAFE beef. You need to know where the beef you are about to eat came from. Know the age of the cow, know where it was raised and how it was fed. If that means you buy only local, grass-fed beef, so be it. If you have the money to spend and love beef that much, go to Whole Foods and get the organic stuff. Ask your butcher where the
beef came from, what it was fed and how all of that is proven/guaranteed. On top of that, think of the other sources of BSE...research has shown prions in muscle and cow's milk...other conflicting research shows it isn't there. So who is right? Right now you have a disease in the UK and the US no one can:

1) Properly track
2) Clinically diagnose
3) CURE
4) Tell you how it spreads from animal to animal and
human to human
5) Guarantee the safety of the food on shelves because
our beef labeling system is insulting. It is archaic.


So it's really something you need to take responsibility for yourself, as the consumer. Decide how much risk you can take. I did. I spend too much at Whole Foods, sometimes, yes. I went vegan, which was hard work, but fun. And I'm happy with it. But not everyone will go vegan to protect themselves. It's not practical for the majority and still doesn't cure the problem with have with prion diseases in this country with both humans and animals. And Americans know nothing about food safety, let alone nutrition, to begin with. So the public needs to be educated. The people are going to need to educate themselves. Take responsibility and start asking questions.

I see reporters reading President Bush the riot act at the White House, but I don't see any science and health reporters asking the right questions of John Clifford and Mike Johanns. Every news story that is printed is the same standard. They all say "beef is safe." They all say, "SRM never entered the food supply," or they say "the infected animal never entered the food supply." Then they talk about BSE causing vCJD, and there is a small mention of CJD and then the token (and not to mention wrong) statistic that CJD is a 1 in 1 million occurence. It's really 1 in 7,000 or 1 in 9,000 depending on who you talk to and what variables they are talking about.

So stop taking the news at face value. There is so much more going on and I'm so sick of how this story is covered. I'm also sick of the use of the phrase "mad cow disease." But I'll have to save that for another blog entry. I'm out of time at present.

Ten Year Old Cow Tests Positive for BSE

Well, it shouldn't be surprising, but it is sad. What I'm waiting for is to see cows younger testing positive. If that happens, we're in trouble. If that happens, those "interlocking safeguards" the Department of Agriculture keeps talking about aren't working.

I talked to Patrick Singh today, his daughter Charlene died of vCJD in June 2004. I interviewed him last year in June (2005) at the one-year anniversary of Charlene's passing. This happened to coincide with the discovery of cow #2. Today's cow was cow #3. Cow #1 to test positive for BSE in the U.S. was December of 2003. I told my news director at the time in June 2005 there would be more cows to test positive. I passed Patrick's info on to my sister station KTAR this evening so they can interview him. I hope they do.

Patrick and I both feel the news today is sad. People who lost loved ones to sporadic CJD in this country don't need the insult added to the injury. First, no on can tell them how their loved ones contracted CJD. Second, they have to watch this cow come up positive today and wonder about the safety of what they are eating. You can tell people sporadic isn't from BSE until the cows come home, but they don't believe it. Patrick has the confirmation that his daughter died from eating infected meat. I have the confirmation that my mother did not die from infected meat because she died of a genetic mutation of CJD. But there are those who bear the frustration of not knowing why. And it has to be scary to see cow #3 pop up today for them.

Another one off to Ames....

Another cow is at Ames being tested for BSE. Inconclusive test results... I've heard that before! This is the first cow since June to test positive. In a few days, we'll know whether the cow is positive or not. So let's wait. Any thoughts? Please comment. The announcement hit the news on a Saturday, of course...

New Support Group

I've begun a new support group online at My Space. I know, I have a support group with CJD Voice. It did take me two months after my mom died to find it and only after copious amounts of Internet searches. So I'm starting this group on My Space. I'm thinking maybe this will attract some younger people, since we all know My Space skews pretty young. It is my goal that we all can find each other, network and share information so that we can all keep discovering how far-reaching CJD really is.

http://groups.myspace.com/CJDSupport

Open Letter to Jeff Abrahamson

Dear Jeff,

Not sure who died and made you the king of editing the Wikepedia entry for CJD, especially since this is obviously not even your area of expertise. Why are you so interested in prion science? Who did you lose to CJD? You do computer science...so why are you interested enough in CJD to delete my blog link daily from the external links?

My blog is not "misleading" as you say. I put it up there because it is my hope that people who are dealing with a CJD diagnosis in their family will find my blog and therefore will find others like us to commincate with. It is completely relevent to the Wikipedia CJD entry...especially since you don't take down the Mad Cowering blog off of one of the other prion science pages. That's a decent blog too, though it is just reprints, basically.

So stop taking down my link. You do know how algorithms work. And seeing as I don't want to piss off the Google algorithm by getting banned, please stop taking down my link. You might be preventing a CJD family from finding support, information and networking. You may be all into the science aspect, and that's great. I encourage that. But I have to deal with the human side of this disease for the rest of my life. (My family is E200K, 129M...since you're so smart, figure that out). Please help make it easier for CJD families to find each other; quit taking my link down.

Thanks,

Heather