The Return of Mad Cow Disease?

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http://counterpunch.com/rosenberg10182010.html


Protecting Industry From the Consumer's Right-to-Know


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Now there are two "mysterious" cases of CJD in McLennan county, Texas says the Waco Tribune-Herald --"a statistical anomaly considering that only one in 1 million people worldwide is affected by the condition in any given year."

The statistical abnormality is also visible on the Texas Department of State Health Services map on its web site. There have been 144 cases of CJD in Texas since 2000 and 42 of them appear in clusters. If CJD is caused for unknown reasons (sporadic) or is familial, it would not come in clusters.

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In addition to food risks, unacknowledged mad cow in US beef could also be a risk in dental implants, made from bovine and cadaver sources.

And now there is also a cloud over deer and elk which get a mad cow like disease called chronic wasting disease (CWD). Like mad cow, CWD is caused by a practically indestructible protein called a prion which is not killed by cooking, alcohol, bleach, formaldehyde or radiation.

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CWD is also taking a toll on deer breeding and hunting lodges, a $4 billion a year industry despite state complaints of deer "overpopulation." Wisconsin alone has hundreds of state sanctioned deer breeding farms.

Earlier this year, a deer with CWD was found at Heartland Wildlife Ranches in Ethel, Mo., 200 miles northwest of St. Louis. Heartland is an 800-acre lodge surrounded by 8-foot fences where hunters "come from across the country to take aim at trophy animals such as whitetail deer, elk and zebra," says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Think Dick Cheney. A three-day hunt for water buffalo costs $4,000.

(how naive can I be, I didn't know they raised deer for 'hunters' to kill)

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but of course