05.11.07
Mad Cow Disease Safeguards
I can not tell you how pleased I am that in 2003 the FDA was able to find the one cow in the US with Mad Cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)). (Actually they found all three, but who’s counting?) I am only a tad nervous that our friends to the north have recently found another mad cow – but with our expertise at keeping out illegal aliens, pills and infected cattle I’m sure we’re in no danger.
Of course, if there were any danger, the Prionics Check Test or other similar test would find it and keep our meat supply safe. But the US is not some little country like Ireland that gets blanket coverage by testing twice as many cows in one day as the US tests all year.  It would really be expensive for us to test all the cows in the US so there’s no real point in testing very many of them – after all, damage from panic would be far worse than having a small number of our citizens suffering dementia and premature death.
Besides, the FDAis quite certain that we have taken all steps necessary to keep both our food supply and that of cats (the other animal prone to prion infection) safe.
However, just to play devil’s advocate, why aren’t we periodically running the Prionics Check test on all the cats that die in a given period? If BSE is found we could then test all livestock and have much greater assurance that prions are not getting into the food supply.
 Just A Thought.
