Mad Cow Disease: Stop the Madness!
News & Views on Mad Cow Disease, Mad Deer Disease, Chronic Wasting Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
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Cow Disease Discussion
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Stop the Madness
Mad Cow Disease Has Been Discovered in the US!
Read More Here From Consumers Union.
Take Action
Join tens of thousands of citizens and sign the Mad Cow USA-Stop the Madness petition, demanding that the US Government adopt and enforce the same strict standards required by the European Union and Japan:
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Mandatory testing for all cattle brought to slaughter, before they enter the food chain.
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Ban the feeding of blood, manure, and slaughterhouse waste to animals.
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Stop harassing farmers and food processors who are interested in independently testing their own beef.
Take Action Here to Stop the Madness!
Download a Mad Cow Petition to print and distribute
Mad Cow Glossary
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE): A family of progressive, incurable, fatal diseases caused by prions. Characterized by dementia, and holes in the brain on autopsy. Can be transmitted between mammals when one mammal eats parts of the nervous system (e.g., brain, spinal cord) of another mammal.
Prion (pronounced pree-on): Novel infectious agent common to these diseases. Not a virus or bacterium, but an infectious protein which can set off a chain reaction which destroys nerve cells. They cannot be inactivated by most sterilization methods.
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE): The technical name for Mad Cow Disease - the TSE found in cattle. The form of BSE found in European cattle is probably not the same as that in US cattle.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD): A human TSE. The classic form of CJD appears to arise spontaneously, but the so-called "new variant" of CJD (nvCJD) is now known to be the human equivalent of mad cow disease thought to be contracted by eating contaminated beef.
Kuru: Another human TSE, found in Pacific Islanders who ate human brains.
Scrapie: The TSE found in sheep. The probable source of all other animal TSEs.
Downer cow: US industry term for an animal who falls down and dies without an apparent disease. Some people speculate that some US downer cows have a form of BSE with different symptoms from the British form of BSE.
Books
Mad
Cow USA by Rampton and Stauber
Before there was Fast Food Nation, there was Mad Cow USA. Those who read this book when it first appeared in 1997 were shocked but not surprised on December 23, 2003, when the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced that mad cow disease had been found in America.
Six years earlier, Stauber and Rampton warned in Mad Cow USA that government and industry in the US had failed to take the necessary steps to prevent this bizarre and deadly dementia disease from spreading through contaminated feed into livestock and humans.
The feeding of rendered slaughterhouse waste to livestock, which spreads mad cow disease and created an epidemic in England, continues to be both legal and widespread in the United States. Dairy calves are literally weaned on cattle blood protein in calf milk formula, while government and industry feed the American public a dangerous diet of outright lies, false assurances and deceptive PR.
Feature Articles
- US Continues to Violate WHO Mad Cow Guidelines
- USDA Doesn't Go Far Enough to Protect the Public
- American Beef Industry Places Public at Risk (audio)
- Mad Cow Disease: Plague of the 21st Century? (audio)
Mad Cow Headlines
- 07/09/12 - Is the Meat You Are Eating Being Fed Animal Feces?
- 05/04/12 - Mad Cow California: What Is Atypical BSE?
- 04/30/12 - Pink Slime and Mad Cow Just the Tip of the Iceberg
- 04/25/12 - America's Mad Cow Crisis by John Stauber
- 04/25/12 - 'Mad Cow' Finding Highlights Food Safety Gaps, Say Critics
- 04/25/12 - Tell the USDA to Stop the Spread of Mad Cow Disease!
- 04/25/12 - Mad Cow California: Stop Weaning Calves on Cattle Blood
- 04/25/12 - Consumer's Union on Announcement Today of a Confirmed Mad Cow in California
- 04/25/12 - For First Time Ever, Mad Cow Disease Found in California Cow
- 04/25/12 - Mad Cow Number Four: A Closer Look
- 04/24/12 - Mad Cow Disease Confirmed In California Dairy Cow, USDA Says
- 02/28/12 - Mechanically Separated Meat Paste Used in Hot Dogs, Burgers, Lunch Meat and Spam
- 02/01/12 - Calif. 'Downer' Pig Ban Blocked by Supreme Court
- 11/01/11 - Could We Face the Return of Mad Cow Disease? Experts Fear It May Lie Dormant in Thousands
- 09/26/11 - UK Officials Believe 15,000 Britons Are Incubating Human Mad Cow Disease (CJD)
- 08/29/11 - Rick Perry, Texas, and Mad Cow Disease--12 Years of Lies
- 05/31/11 - Local Cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Brain Disease Draw Scrutiny
- 05/13/11 - Campaigners Demand 'Mad Cow Disease' Criminal Inquiry
- 03/07/11 - Mad Cow Atypical CJD Prion TSE Cases With Classifications Pending on the Rise in North America
- 01/26/11 - Beware Venison Eaters: Mad Deer Disease (CWD) May Be Transmissible to Humans
- 01/14/11 - Mad Cow Disease 'Can Be Spread Through Air'
- 09/07/10 - Meat Back on Menu for Animal Feed 20 Years After BSE Crisis
- 08/04/10 - New Research: Human Form of Mad Cow Disease Results from Surgery
- 06/10/10 - Mad Cow Disease in the USA: Understand Prions, Part II
- 06/09/10 - Mad Cow Disease in USA: Profits Take Priority, Part I
- 04/05/10 - 76 Groups Implore USDA to Keep Out Canada's Mad Cows
- 03/14/10 - Mad Cow Disease Case Hidden For Weeks By Canadian and U.S. Agencies
- 12/27/09 - Is There a Mad Cow on My Dinner Plate?
- 12/22/09 - Many More Europeans May Be Incubating Mad Cow Disease
- 12/18/09 - Second Wave of CJD Begins: Most Recent Victim had Different Gene
- 12/16/09 - Vaccines, Prions, Genetic Modification, Mad Cows, and You
- 11/30/09 - Austin Study Found Why Some Pork workers Got Sick, but Much Still Unknown
- 11/29/09 - Progress Slow in Battle Against Chronic Wasting Disease
- 11/27/09 - Mad People Create Mad Cow Disease, Part I
- 11/08/09 - Chronic Wasting Disease Testing Widens
- 11/02/09 - FDA Urged to Ban Feeding of Chicken Feces to Cattle
- 09/14/09 - Mad Cow Disease Spread by Manure
- 09/10/09 - Study Spells Out Spread of Chronic Wasting Disease
- 06/19/09 - Scientist Warns that Farmed Fish Could be a Source of Mad Cow Disease
- 04/16/09 - Farm Group & CJD Foundation Trying to Sweep USA Mad Cow Crisis Under the Rug
- 03/30/09 - Lawmakers Ask for Delay of New Mad Cow Rule
- 03/22/09 - Chronic Wasting Disease Prions Found in Elk Antler Velvet
- 03/16/09 - Having a Cow and Eating it Too: The Real Deal on Food Safety
- 03/14/09 - Unwholesome Regulations on Food
- 03/11/09 - Meat Eaters Face Ban on 'Clean' Transfusions Amid New CJD Fears
- 02/24/09 - Chronic Wasting Disease is Here to Stay
- 01/05/09 - Rule Intended to Curb Mad Cow May Have Unexpected Consequences
- 12/27/08 - Force-Feeding Koreans USD Mad Cow Beef
- 12/19/08 - Fears Raised Over New vCJD Wave in UK
- 12/10/08 - New Tests Show Hazards of Spreading Mad Cow-Like Diseases by Feeding Animal Fats to Animals
- 12/10/08 - 'Second Wave' of Mad Cow Disease Could Hit Britain, Scientists Warn
- 12/04/08 - Study Links Fast-Food Diets to Alzheimer's
- 11/29/08 - US Beef Back on Shelves of South Korean Supermarkets
- 11/24/08 - New Mad-Cow Rule Poses Health Dangers of Its Own
- 11/17/08 - The Future of Food in an Obama Administration
More Mad Cow Headlines
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