Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published Dec. 31, 2003

What's the beef?


Mad Cow Disease. Even the name conjures up visions of cattle romping glassy-eyed, frothing at the mouth, attacking everyone in sight.
Well, it just ain't so.

Certainly our Department of Agriculture and other government regulatory agencies should do everything possible to control any outbreak of disease among animals - wild or domesticated. But there should be reason in all things.

Last Tuesday, the Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, held a 45-minute nationally broadcast "news conference" to announce a possibility that one Holstein milk cow slaughtered on a ranch in the state of Washington had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease (MCD). It has since been confirmed by a laboratory in London that the cow did, in fact, have that disease.

As a result of Madam Veneman's inflammatory statements, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Australia, who represent 10 percent of all American beef exports, have already banned its importation, with more countries to follow. Tens of thousands of pounds of beef have been recalled from the market. Safeway, a long-time customer of the firm that slaughtered the cow, said it will start looking for another supplier. Beef prices fell the maximum limit in Christmas Eve trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the price is expected to continue its slide. A chief economist at a Chicago investment banking firm estimates that this could cost the beef industry as much as $5 billion in coming months.

As stated previously, we should take every effort to control the spread of this, and all communicable diseases. But there should be some reason somewhere. Even Ms. Veneman said MCD is not nearly as contagious a disease as is "foot and mouth disease."

(Apparently Ms. Veneman didn't realize cows don't have "feet." They have hooves, and the correct name of the disease is "hoof and mouth disease.")

MCD is transmitted to other cattle through their ingestion of brain and spinal cord tissue from infected animals. Such tissue was at one time used in cattle feed, but the practice was outlawed in 1997. It is presumed that this cow may have gotten some feed produced prior to the ban. The brain and spinal cord of the cow in question was disposed of at a rendering plant, according to law. A variant of the disease, Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, can be transmitted to humans by eating the meat of such infected animals.

True, infected feed caused a spreading of MCD in England a number of years ago, but what few cows that are produced in England are in a very confined area, not on an open range such as we have in the state of Washington. And we should keep in mind that we are only talking of one cow. A Holstein milk cow. Not a beef cow. And the slaughterhouse that processed the carcass of this one cow does not export beef! Never has.

But Ms. Veneman's obsession with face time on national TV has caused a hysteria that will affect every beef producer in the country - even here in Middle Tennessee. President Bush should fire her on the spot!

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle. He can be contacted at edwd@blomand.net