|
 |
From: Lance ( An E-mail Conversation and Commentary)
Remote Name: 66.82.48.1
Date: 17 Jan 2004
Time: 03:51:15
The Mad Cow problems and solutions; well recently we've all heard about mad cow disease, we've been looking for three years and finally we found it. Last year we found it in Canada before that it was in England. Mad cow disease or BSE comes in many forms. Chronic waste disease is similar and happens in deer. Now the we found it what do we do. Well we need to track to cattle better so we know which cattle come from which farms and were the offspring of which cattle. Another thing we need to do is to stop feeding cow's back to each other. The human race when involved in cannibalism also has terrible repercussions. You should never feeding species back to itself. If you do your just asking for problems. We know a lot about mad cow disease because a was so serious in England and the entire UK. In New Zealand they use RFID tags two-way and track cattle, we recently put a message on the message board for RFID magazine online. The weekly e-mailed newsletter goes to all the professionals and industry. As you may never read previously, we have been working on trying to figure out a way to use RFID tags to track the cars that we watch in large parking structures. We learned quite a bit about how RFID tags work. Most RFID tags without power work from less than 60 feet away even with a large gain antenna. Our idea in the parking structures was to put a large gain antenna of on both sides of the golf cart, which would have all the equipment on it. We also know from our studies did RF ID tags in large concrete warehouse is work best Wynn mounted on the ceiling and on the walls for the posts, which hold up the building. Any 100,000 square foot warehouse building you would need approximately 12 RFID antennas strategically placed. If the shelving is thick and the boxes containing metal parts or dense materials that make up the product within the box then even 12 antennas may not work. Although RF ID tags have been hyped in supply chain magazines, Wal-Mart strategic planners, Department of Defense and other large retailers, the RF ID tags are still not one or percent perfect yet. For instance if we were to use these in a standard parking structure or central parking, parking structure we would have difficulty, because the RF ID tags do not have power in them and the readers standing out the radio frequency signal are low-power and cannot work through concrete or steel. Any airport parking structures that are multilevel they will only work when you're right behind the car a large SUV or pickup truck for instance would not read the RF ID tags inside the vehicle. RF ID tags do work through glass. The USDA has formed a task force to look into the possibility of this technology helping solve the problem of mad cow disease I recently have the opportunity to talk two gentlemen for Nebraska who is working with the American beef association on compliance training and certification using a CD-ROM which they set out their members these members could take a distance online course using the template on the CD-ROM, once the course was completed the viewer was given to the server at the American beef association to take a test. The test was broken down into sections and begin complete each section or fail to section, you would be required to go back and take that part of the test over again. Once you are certified you get a certificate of the mail for the quality beef assurance program, if we added the necessary information required to comply with the necessary safety standards to prevent cows with BSE from entering our food chain or getting on a truck on the way to the slaughterhouse, we could insure that no mad cow ever entered our food chain. Problems such as e.coli bacteria and Salmonella are different than mad cow, if we radiate the food with e.coli bacteria and or Salmonella that beef could still be used in Swanson TV dinners or various processed foods because the microwave would radiate the food killing e.coli and Salmonella before was packaged, that could easily solve the problem. However when you feed a species to itself and that individual cattle has a problem with their DNA or RNA or issues with proteins, then you have a major problem. I wanted to bring to your attention some of the serious nature of what we're discussing here. Here is a book that was written about mad cow disease is worth understanding and worth reading. 180 people died in the UK from mad cow disease it does affect humans and it melts your brain, that cannot be fun way to die. Here is a book review on Mad Cow taken from the Author’s PR firm: ------------- now before you read this, realize that these views are those of the author of the book. Whereas, I believe this is very very serious, I do not blame the beef industry, I like to meat, I like T-bone steak, I like an American cheeseburger, I like fast food, I like to meat anytime anyplace in any type. I know that's within the last 160,000 years for sure that humankind have been partly carnivores. Hunters and gatherers. I believe our species need to meet, I think the problem that we have Muslim Islamic radicals is because they are not getting enough proteins in their diets and therefore cannot think properly and are led astray towards evil. I believe with the right proteins take in the right foods in the right moderation is the best for mankind. I will never stop eating meat I like its taste, I like how it makes me feel, and I love to sit down and bite into a nice well-prepared media well juicy steak. -- -- -- -- -- ------------------------- “Mad Cow USA: The Nightmare Begins” By John Stauber, December 30, 2003: When Sheldon Rampton and I wrote our 1997 book, "Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?", it received favorable reviews from some interesting publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, New Scientist, and Chemical & Engineering News. Yet although the book was released just before the infamous Texas trial of Oprah Winfrey and her guest Howard Lyman, for the alleged crime of "food disparagement," the book was ignored by the mainstream media, and even most left and alternative publications failed to review it. Apparently many people who never read it at the time bought the official government and industry spin that mad cow disease was just some hysterical European food scare, not a deadly human and animal disease that could emerge in America. In March, 1996, when the British government reversed itself after ten years of denial and announced that young people were dying from the fatal dementia called variant CJD – mad cow disease in humans – the United States media dutifully echoed reassurances from government and livestock industry officials that all necessary precautions had been take long ago to guard against the disease. Those who did read "Mad Cow USA" when it was published in November, 1997, however, realized that the United States assurances of safety were based on public relations and public deception, not science or adequate regulatory safeguards. We revealed that the United States Department of Agriculture knew more than a decade ago that to prevent mad cow disease in America would require a strict ban on "animal cannibalism," the feeding of rendered slaughterhouse waste from cattle to cattle as protein and fat supplements, but refused to support the ban because it would cost the meat industry money. It was the livestock feed industry that led the effort in the early 1990s to lobby into law the Texas food disparagement act, and when an uppity Oprah hosted an April 1996, program featuring rancher-turned vegan activist Howard Lyman, she and her guest became the first people sued for the crime of sullying the good name of beef. Oprah eventually won her lawsuit, but it cost her years of legal battling and millions of dollars. In reality, the public lost, because mainstream media stopped covering the issue of mad cow disease. As one TV network producer told me at the time, his orders were to keep his network from being sued the way Oprah had been. In the six years since the publication of "Mad Cow USA," Sheldon Rampton and I have spoken out in media interviews, at conferences of United States families who had lost relatives to CJD, and we saw our book published in both South Korea and Japan. Our activism won us some interesting enemies, such as Richard Berman, a Republican lobbyist who runs an industry-funded front group that calls itself The Center for Consumer Freedom http://consumerfreedom.com . Berman is a darling of the tobacco, booze, biotech and food industries, and with their funding he issued an online report depicting us as the ring leaders of a dangerous conspiracy of vegetarian food terrorists out to destroy the United States food system. Last week alone he issued two national news releases attempting to smear us. Of course, he had an easier time attacking us before the emergence of mad cow disease in America. I was saddened but not surprised when mad cow disease was finally discovered in the United States. When the first North American cow with the disease was found last May in Canada, I told interviewers that if the disease was in Canada, it would also be found in the United States and Mexico, since all three NAFTA nations are one big free trade zone and all three countries feed their cattle slaughterhouse waste in the form of blood, fat and rendered meat and bone meal. In fact, in North America calves are literally weaned on milk formula containing "raw spray dried cattle blood plasma," even though scientists have known for many years that blood can transmit mad cow type diseases. (This is why if you try to donate your blood to the Red Cross, you will be rejected if you spent significant time in Britain during the height of its mad cow epidemic. Britain is afraid that humans with mad cow disease may have contaminated the British blood supply, and they do not use its own blood plasma since as yet no test can adequately screen blood for mad cow disease.) The United States has spent millions of dollars on PR convincing Americans that mad cow could never happen here, and now the USDA is engaged in a crisis management plan that has federal and state officials, livestock industry flacks, scientists and other trusted experts assuring the public that this is no big deal. Their litany of falsehoods include statements that a "firewall" feed ban has been in place in the United States since 1997, that muscle meat is not infective, that no slaughterhouse waste is fed to cows, that the United States tests adequate numbers of cattle for mad cow disease, that quarantines and meat recalls are just an added measure of safety, that the risks of this mysterious killer are miniscule, that no one in the United States has ever died of any such disease, and on and on. The latest spin is to blame the United States mad cow crisis on Canada. On Saturday, December 27, with no conclusive proof whatsoever, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that the mad cow in Washington state had actually entered the United States years ago from Canada. This set off an understandable howl from the Canadian government, and by Sunday the United States was forced to back off somewhat, but clearly the PR ploy is to get Americans thinking that this is Canada's problem, not ours. Even if Canada does turn out to be the source of America's first case of mad cow disease, numerous questions remain: How many other infected cows have crossed our porous borders and been processed into human and animal food? Why are United States slaughterhouse regulations so lax that a visibly sick cow was sent into the human food chain weeks before tests came back with the mad cow findings? Where did the infected byproduct feed that this animal ate come from, and how many thousands of other animals have eaten similar feed? Since the announcement of United States mad cow disease our phones have rung off the hook with interview requests. The New York Times noted that "The 1997 book 'Mad Cow USA', by Sheldon Rampton and John C. Stauber, made the case that the disease could enter the United States from Europe in contaminated feed." Articles in the New York Times also cited other warnings from Consumer Union's Michael Hansen, and Dr. Stanley Prusiner, the Nobel Prize-winning researcher who this week called the current United States practice of weaning calves on cattle blood protein "stupid." All of this would be very vindicating, except for one problem: the millions of dollars that the government and industry are spending on PR to pull the wool over the public's eyes might just succeed in forestalling the necessary steps that now, at this late date, must still be taken to adequately deal with this crisis. The good news is that those steps are rather simple and understandable. We should ship Ann Veneman and her smartest advisors to Britain where they can copy the successful feed and testing regulations that have solved the mad cow problem in Europe. Veneman and her advisors should institute a complete and total ban on feeding any slaughterhouse waste to livestock. You may think this is already the case because that's what industry and government said they did back in the summer of 1997. But beside the cattle blood being legally fed back to cattle, billions of pounds of rendered fat, blood meal, meat and bone meal from pigs and poultry are rendered and fed to cattle, and cattle are rendered and fed to other food species, a perfect environment for spreading and amplifying mad cow disease and even for creating new strains of the disease. The feed rules that the United States must adopt can be summarized this way: you might not be a vegetarian, but the animals you eat must be. The United States must also institute an immediate testing regime that will test millions of cattle, not the 20,000 tested out of 35 million slaughtered in the past year in the United States. Japan now tests all cattle before consumption, and disease experts like Dr. Prusiner recommend this goal for the United States. And of course, no sick "downer" cows, barely able to move, should be fed to any humans. These are the type of animals most likely to be infected with mad cow and other ailments – although mad cows can also seem completely healthy at the time of slaughter, which is why testing all animals must be the goal. Ann Veneman and the Bush administration, unfortunately, currently have no plans to do the right thing. The United States meat industry still believes that the millions of dollars in campaign contributions doled out over the years will continue to forestall the necessary regulations, and that soothing PR assurances will convince the consuming public that this is just some vegetarian fear-mongering conspiracy concocted by the media to sell organic food. Will the American public buy this bull? It has in the past. Much depends on journalists and what they are willing to swallow. It looks to me as if papers such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times are finally putting some good investigative reporting teams onto this issue, and that may undercut and expose PR ruses such as the "blame Canada campaign." What I can predict is that the international boycott of United States beef, rendered byproducts, animals and animal products will continue, and this will apply a major economic hurt to meat producers big and small across the country. Will their anger turn against the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the Animal Feed Industry Association and other lobbies that have prevented the United States from doing the right thing in the past? Or will this become some sort of nationalistic food culture issue, with confused consumers and family farmers blaming everyone but the real culprits in industry and government? We must continue to advocate for the United States to do the right thing: Follow the lead of the European Union nations, ban all "animal cannibalism," and test more or all animals. In the meantime, if you want safe American beef, search out products that are certified organic and guaranteed not to be fed slaughterhouse waste such as calf formula made from cattle blood. An excellent source of information on the web is the site of the Organic Consumers Association . http://www.organicconsumer.org Our book, "Mad Cow USA," is temporarily unavailable until a paperback copy is released later in 2004. However, you can get the book in its entirety for free through the website of our Center for Media & Democracy. Simply go to http://www.prwatch.org and click on the cover of "Mad Cow USA." You'll be taken to http://www.prwatch.org/books/mcusa.pdf where you can download for free the entire book – and read the warnings that went unheeded then, and are still being ignored by government regulators and industry. ------------------------------------------- I heard from a friend of mine in Montana that there was a recent Cal auction, in the buyers purposely paid more for the cattle ban the going market. Why did they this? they did it because they believe in the industry, they represent the industry and they wanted to stop the freefall of prices, which were being dictated by the Chicago commodities market due to the mass media hysteria, whether founded or unfounded, which is set those prices and downward spiral. the beef industry in United States of America represents one of our largest and longest-running industries. we export our beef to more than 90 countries worldwide. we saw what happened to the Canadian beef industry when they found mad cow disease in one of their cows, we do not want that to happen here. in the last couple years there have been problems with droughts where farmers could not get the feed in cost more grow the feed or there wasn't enough water to grow the feed which raise the price of the feed, mean the cost to raise one Cow jumped by 22 percent, the cattle ranchers had no choice they took their cattle to slaughter early, thus driving down the price even further, then there was an oversupply, do you remember last year win all the fast food restaurants were selling hamburgers for a buck, that was not as a loved you, that is because taken by the beef cheaper, and I am not saying that McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Carl's Jr., In and Out, Backyard Burger, Juicy Lucy’s do not love their customers, because that is the first they may teach you, whether you work at Starbucks, Boston market, or at any QSR - quick service restaurant. You may also realize at the grocery store prices for beef were also down some 30%. Today after the announcements of a mad cow in the state of Washington, we saw chaos. 450 cattle were destroyed immediately and that is the way it had to be. Although we have pretty good record keeping in the United States not all farms are a sophisticated you might think. Some farms still keep track of their cattle using three by five index cards. as a matter of fact in Canada the cow, with the mad cow disease, had its number written on a three by five index card with a date next to it. That was all the record keeping they had. and the date had been altered. So who are the real international terrorists, business as usual is not to work, a plan needs to be said in motion now. There is no more time for BS. This involves our food chain, our food supply, and a safety and welfare of the American people. RF ID is the answer and let me tell you why. Currently there are farms that have set up a bar-code system, which allows them to track the cattle from birth to shelf. This can be done with RF ID tags attached to the ear of the cattle. Win a cow interest heard it will be given a number that number will correspond to its mother, the heard, the farm. win this cow is taken to slaughter that number will go on a dock sheet. and that number will stay with the batch where the meat is put in for let's say hamburger where 300 or more cows might be put into a single batch. as those batches go out to the stores and distributors they will be coated with RFID tag with the batch number. we already know, that stores like Wal-Mart, Albertson's, Safeway, Publix, are all going to be using RF ID tags very soon. there is no reason this cannot be done, and the batch orders, can be loaded down every night to the USDA. this way we know, when, where, and what is in every single package of meat. on further review of how this happened, with a dairy cow, no less, we probably should not be using downer cow's to produce meat. and downer cow's need to be labeled in such a way that they do not end up in the human food chain. the cat or ranchers may not get is much money for them, but they will still be able to sell the. the number of cow we tested this country is obviously not enough either. Some people might say that the testing costs lots of money, whereas this is true, if we cannot export our beef to other countries we will lose billions of dollars per year and that is serious. when I first heard about this, and initial reports I was quite upset as you probably were. hamburgers and state are like apple pie in baseball. they are like Chevrolet, yes, they are like the automobile, soccer moms, and Boy Scouts. in the United States we have only 280 million people here but we have 4600 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific in nearly 2600 miles from Brownsville to Minot, North Dakota. let's face it it a big country and I think I can vouch for that, having driven to every city in United States of America over 10,000 population. I've taken the freeways, I've taken the toll-ways, I've taken the back roads, hell I've even had to take dirt roads. and let me tell you big guy, before you take your mighty liberal pen and chock off the beef industry, you need to get your butt out there and see what I've seen. cattle and cattle ranchers are very American, and it is one of the last honest, hard-working professions. now you can say that I've been stepping in pasture patties, cow pies, meadow muffins or sidewalk Sunday's, and yes I've been known to sling the little bull in my day. but let me tell you those hard-working Americans, which we call cattle ranchers have more than 10 gallon hats. here are some my thoughts originally on the issue; I cannot tell you how much I agree with the serious nature of this Mad Cow thing. It needs maximum attention and proactive involvement right now. Big time intervention and drastic measures otherwise this thing could get way out of hand quick. Although I am a supporter in concept of the current Administration's tact on most issues and the FDA, USDA (as incompetent as they are at times with regards to food distribution safeguards), I am aligned with the fact that this issue of Mad Cow will not simply go away. I propose swift isolation, burning of those farms where those cattle ended up (reimbursement with Federal Dollars), sterilization of equipment by HAZ MAT First Responder Teams (good practice), closing of those dairy facilities, steam cleaning those trucks, continuing the Canadian cut off of cattle, criminal charges to those who imported and did not tell later and immediate extradition by military force of the Canadian importer. We need answers now, not BS. We are safe from Mad Cow? Hmmm? Prove it, show me the problem is taken care of. We should do this now without judgment, if nothing more than for practice incase of future biological attack or virus or disease outbreak. Then we can tell the American People there is nothing to worry about. I love cheese burgers too, but not for a several months at minimum. Action must be taken now and the prevention mentioned for the future later. Prevention in the future is not enough, we have what could turn into a crisis right now. --------------------- I can tell you, after traveling through Texas, Southern Idaho, Central Florida, Central Valley CA, Lancaster PA, Central Kansas and rural areas of Minnesota, Washington state, Oregon state, Montana, that this issue is serious for the economic vitality of our nation, the American people, in our trade deficit. If we cannot export beef and we keep buying patent pirated products in automotive, software, entertainment, household goods, textiles, etc. then all of our money will flow out of the country without the benefit of it coming back into our country to pay for consumable goods that we produce. Our beef exports make up a major chunk of the exports of this nation. This is serious, not just because my company washes the trucks http://www.TruckWashGuy.com , trains, cargo containers, tractors http://www.tractorwashguys.com and ships used in the process of producing a shipping beef, but because without the money flow back into our country the average citizen will have less money in their pocket for that money to flow around so they can buy soccer shoes new tires for their SUV, food for their table and enjoy the process of pursuing their American dream. God bless America, God bless the cows, in God bless the beef industry. Now go out and buy yourself nice juicy steak. And eat the whole thing, this way you’ll know what I am talking about, you'll have a protein in your brain to think and understand the serious ramifications of city in our laurels and not doing a thing. Any comments: Lance@carwashguys.com .
|
|
©Copyright 1996-. All rights reserved.
Site hosted by CCG
Site design by CCG Studio
DISCLAIMER:
Although we exert control over all articles written by our staff and
consultants, we are in no way able to assure the accuracy of any content generated by our
readers. Any information or advice provided by our readers should be used
cautiously, and should be considered as an opinion of such, and not the views, ideas,
opinions, or advice of Washguy.com. Washguy.com., its staff, and consultants
shall in no way be held liable or responsible for any false or misleading information or
injurious advice obtained from our readers, including any information posted to this
Bulletin Board forum. Any information or advice obtained from other readers
through Bulletin Board postings shall be used at the reader's own risk. The
Bulletin Board forum functions as a discussion group for the exchange of views,
information and opinions on issues related to the Car Wash Guys, Franchising and their
associated topics. Washguy.com, its staff, and consultants will not be held
liable for any incidental or consequential loss or damage sustained as a result of this
information or advice. No user shall be entitled to claim detrimental
reliance on any views received from the staff, consultants or other readers.
By using this Bulletin Board and it's related forums, you agree to indemnify and hold
Washguy.com, its staff and consultants harmless from any claims arising as a result of
your use of the information or materials you download from or upload to the Bulletin
Board.
