Agriculture officials say a rarely seen form of mad cow disease has been found in Alabama.

[herding cats]

Source: Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Agriculture officials say a rarely seen form of mad cow disease has been found in Alabama.

A statement from state Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan says atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy was confirmed in an 11-year-old beef cow.

The U.S. Agriculture Department says this only the fifth case of the atypical form of the disease being confirmed in the United States.

McMillan says the animal was discovered during routine screening at a livestock market. The cow wasn’t slaughtered and its meat didn’t enter the food chain.

Read more: https://apnews.com/3f554af1fb8443ff8cda7ddaa54190b5?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

[Achilleaze]

1. Doubleplusungood.

.

[Adrahil]

2. Resisting.... making.... Trump... supporter... joke. NT

[Sunlei]

3. mixing Alabama's mass deer deaths into the cattle feed as 'protein'? what kind of prion disease &

what about the rest of the herd of 11 year OLD breeding cows? They in our hamburger supply? routine screening huh?




Alabama deer disease | Alzheimer's Disease
alzheimerdisease.tv/tag/alabama-deer-disease/

Jun 22, 2014 - Deadly Proteins Likely Causing Mass Deer Deaths In Alabama, Elsewhere ... point to prion disease that has ravaged at least one private herd of deer in Alabama. ... Key Proteins Found In Early Phases Of Alzheimer's Disease ...

[Girard442]

4. Did you ever notice that much of our food chain is dependent...

...on the principle that heat kills contagion?

Heat doesn't destroy prions.

[Sunlei]

10. yes, and it ruins ice cream when you try to boil out the factory contaminates!

[jpak]

17. Yup

And it's a good thing it doesn't affect the peripheral nervous system of cattle .

[Coventina]

5. Mad cow was why I quit eating beef in the early 90s.

Once I quit eating beef, it wasn't long before I quit eating the rest of my furry friends.

I've never regretted my decision, not for one second!

[flying-skeleton]

6. THAT disease is already infected the Whitehouse !!

[Doitnow]

9. First thing I thought when reading the title to this thread was

maybe that's what's wrong in the White House.

[marylandblue]

7. USDA has an extensive screening program for cattle

if they show signs of neurological illness. Also, brain and spinal cord, where the prions live, must be removed deom the cattle before meat processing. Fortunately, Trump is not cutting the budget for the parts of USDA that work on food inspection and animal health.

[Sunlei]

12. sure slaughterhouses are very careful not to spatter a speck of nervous system on the meat we eat

and they would never drag a downer cow out of the shipping trailers and all the old dairy cattle never get around those chronic wasting diseased plague filled deer/elk/moose found in 45 states across America.

and the slaughterhouse slop, brains & cords are never mixed into animal feed render, never would a slaughterhouse do that.

[marylandblue]

24. Didn't say it was perfect

But there is a system in place and it has managed to keep mad cow disease out of your brain for decades.

[Sunlei]

25. prion diseases take a long time to show up in humans.I don't trust our USA slaughter Corp. at all.

or the meat traceability, or labeling, or pet food Corps.

[LeftInTX]

14. I've seen goat and lambs brains in ethnic groceries...

also I think some barbacoa around here is still cow's brains. (Although it is becoming rare)
I also see whole pigs heads around here at Christmas time.

[Igel]

8. Terra, terra. Sigh.

Okay.

Atypical BSE's original is still a bit fuzzy. Unclear how it's transmitted, at least as of 2006, but there were two types of atypical BSE (BASE or BSE-L and BSE-H). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291375/ Note that the Western blot pattern is different between aBSE and BSE, meaning that the underlying infectious agents are distinct. Given the quantity of BSE testing that occurred, BSE freely converted to aBSE strains we can expect that this would have been found.

But BASE can be transmitted to mice, at least transgenic mice of some sort, at an infection rate higher than BSE. So it can be transmitted. But that doesn't help figure out where, exactly, it's coming from. http://jvi.asm.org/content/82/7/3697.full. At least tentative research in 2008 said this.

The incidence is low, and that makes study difficult. This is the US's 5th case. Other countries have had more.


So then there's the question of whether deer CWD = BSE of some form.

http://jvi.asm.org/content/early/2015/07/03/JVI.01439-15 says that cat CWD can be transmitted in some form to humans to form something that sounds like BASE, one of the two atypical BSE types.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/06/researchers-make-surprising-discovery-about-spread-of-chronic-wasting-disease/#.WW-fYjFK3hA, not my most trusted source to be sure, claims deer CWD and BSE are different. But what about BASE?

Otherwise can't find much on deer CWD/human transmission. It's likely deer CWD =/= BSE, Food Safety News being irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Given the transmission rates of BASE to mice, if ground up CWD-infected carcasses were being fed to cows and transmission was likely, we'd expect to see a whole lot more BASE.

I'm cautious, not outraged or terror-stricken, but will certainly keep tuned for any actual information that doesn't just aim to provoke outrage.

[Sunlei]

13. not that many 11 yr old cows, except breeders and dairy cattle and 12+deer/elk/moose and 50+humans

[Cryptoad]

11. ALl I can say is that it expains alot about Alabama

I have always said there was a brain rot disease on lose in Alabama

[mackdaddy]

15. Trump Steaks?

[jmowreader]

23. Ah yes, the Trump Steak

They're USDA Cutter Grade. The best there is. Would I lie to you? For the true Trump experience, cook it until it's hard enough to drive in a framing nail and soak it in ketchup.

[angstlessk]

16. The scariest thing that ever happened to me...my first thought was 'mad cow disease'

I was suffering pain, and I was taking ibuprofen, aspirin, and what was touted as my friends muscle relaxer...

I have had 'ocular migraines' for years, and this day I had one. Then I had a seizure..they called the ambulance, and when I tried to put my arm into my jacket it (my arm) went skyward...when I tried to walk down the stairs my leg went up...my friend told the ambulance people to put me on a stretcher to convey me, and they seemed unhappy about that.

Got to the hospital, of which I have very little remembrance, except when I began to shiver and was asked what was happening...don't remember much after.

Was told to see a neurosurgeon...but when I contacted him was told I needed a referral...seems emergency docs were not enough...never saw one.

Next weekend I went to the emergency to claim I was having an appendix problem...turned out I had a gall stone the size of a golf ball.

Got operated on...and years of pain (since I was 17) was behind me...

BUT I still thought the seizure was mad cow disease...and my next 'ocular migraine' I insisted to go outside on the lawn...why???

Have had 20 or so 'ocular migraines' since without any other effects

[saidsimplesimon]

18. This is a cause for concern.

Why did some countries ban American beef?

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[Lokilooney]

19. Did you know

A whopping 4 people have died in total from Mad cow disease in the US? Yikes! Now if you would excuse me I'm going to to eat some bagged spinach...

[machoneman]

20. It all started at the White House as this strain of mad cow disease infects Trump and his staff!

No foolin'!

[raven mad]

21. Not good; my daughter lives there.

But it my be confined to the Governor's Mansion and the State House...........

[Egnever]

22. Is it bad I thought this was a joke about Jeff sessions?

[not fooled]

26. Good thing Sam Clovis

will be on the case.

[link:https://thinkprogress.org/sam-clovis-officially-nominated-still-not-a-scientist-d47be4ffb1a8|]
[link:https://wonkette.com/617064/usdas-new-top-researcher-is-a-godfearing-patriot-which-is-way-better-than-a-scientist|]

[link:|]