Conference tallis::celt

 Hi,
	Well the status in Britain (one 't') is that Scottish herds are
 virtually unnaffected by this disease. This isn't because Scottish cows
 have some inbuilt resistance but is simply a side effect of the process
 which brought MCD about.

 MCD results because recycled animal remains (sheep?) are fed to the
 cows and the disease scrapie is transmitted to them. It has only 
 recently appeared in cows because the process of recycling the
 animal remains was effective in removing the disease. However, 
 that was until the plants where the processing is performed were
 improved and now the recycling is not effective at stopping the
 disease being present. However, the one Scottish plant where the
 recycling takes place at was not improved. As a result, Scottish
 herds have continued to eat uncontaminated food. 

 The problem for the consumer, is that outside of Scotland, little
 or no Scottish beef is labelled as being Scottish. It all comes
 under the generic title of British beef.

	Craig.

    The disease has appeared among cows in GB recently. It seems the
    cows infected stagger around as if drunk. It is caused by feeding
    cows with a fattener made from the brains of sheep that had mad
    sheep disease. 
    
    Mad cow disease is not found in Ireland because of two factors
    
    1. Mad sheep disease does not occur here
    2. Feeding cows with bits of sheep is discouraged
    
    However, a few cases have turned up in various parts of Ireland.
    The reason is that a good deal of smuggling of cattle goes on, and
    English beef gets passed off as Irish and vice versa: it is common
    knowledge that in both Britain and Ireland farmers, dealers, butchers,
    abbatoirs, meat factories are into every kind of fiddle all in the
    noble cause of extracting as much money as possible from the  EC
    bureaucracy in Brussels.
    
    Medical people say that humans can't catch Mad Cow Disease, they
    have been eating sheep with the same disease for centuries. (It
    seems that mad sheep disease is harder to detect as sheep are
    basically pretty silly anyway).
     

As John says feeding sheep to cattle is not done. The problem in Britain is that
the technology to do this is available. The same technology is used to make 
what is known as "reconstituted meat" This is bits of skin bones hides etc.

The resulting mess is then processed into "PIES" for your pub lunch. That is 
why you need at least 6 pints to keep the lunch down. A bit like some of the
chip shops in GALWAY really.

In Ireland these offal products are turned into meat and bone meal and used for
fertiliser. However James Herriot in one of his books tells a great story about 
a child in the Yorkshire dales eating fistfuls of the stuff with no ill effect.

MBr

    
    
    If the cows are being fed sheep do they still say Mooooooo ?  8*)
    
    paddy

    "If you feed a cow cocoa she won't milk chocolate"
    				(Polish proverb)
                                         (Really)
    

    <<"If you feed a cow cocoa she won't milk chocolate"

	Sounds like an udder story to me, baaaah.  Sorry 'bout
	that, I'm feeling rather sheepish, actually.  Didn't
	intend to get yer goat, as it were, but some people 
	will always try to pull the wool over...I know, it's
	a rump joke...
	    

    When I lived in London (about 20 years ago) I had a friend who 
    worked as an inspector for a food company, and from him heard
    all sorts of gruesome stories about the meat trade.
    
    At one stage, a prominent rival food company launched a range of
    pork pies: with much fanfare. These pies soon appeared in all the
    pubs, I ate them myself on occasion. Then my friend told me that
    his company had had one of these pies analysed. It turned out to
    be legally pork - the basic ingredient was powdered pig-hair!
    

	Re. 8: I've heard of taking the 'hair of the dog' but never the
	'hair of the pig' !
	
	On the cow business, over the past two or three years in the UK
	almost every foodstuff has come in for a deal of scaremongering,
	some probably justified and some not. Eggs, chickens, soft cheese,
	lamb, chilled food and even water as well as beef have been a
	source for concern.
	
	At the height of the BSE scare it was also reported that two cats
	(one in Cardiff, the other I think in Co. Tyrone) had developed a
	feline variety of the disease. Both animals had been fed on
	butcher's craps rather than proprietary cat food, and there was a
	deal of speculation about species-hopping, and whether some rare
	forms of human brain disease could be linked to eating infected
	offal.

	Personally I think it no coincidence that the only animal not
	implicated in any of these horror stories is our friend the pig;
	it's all a plot by the pork marketing board !
	
	John

It was reported on the BBC news tonight that in a laboratory experiment,
a pig caught BSE.

	Craig

    re .9
    
       "Both animals had been fed on butcher's craps"
    
    I'm not surprised they caught some sort of disease !!!!!!
    
    		Brian.

	Re .11: they were the two out of ten cats who didn't prefer Whiskas !
	
	On the alleged porcine dimension of BSE, I think it wouldn't be true
	to say the pig caught the disease, more that the poor animal was
	given very little chance of avoiding it.
	
	I think the pig has the most unenviable life of all domestic animals,
	even leaving aside the unspeakable conditions they have to put up
	with in modern intensive farming methods.
	
	The chicken believes it is kept for eggs, the cow for milk and the
	sheep for wool; but poor piggy can have no such delusions - he is
	destined to be rashers and chops. A shame, since pigs are generally
	intelligent creatures, with a pleasant disposition which more than
	compensates for their lack of table manners.
	
	John

    
    
    
    
    
    		Chicken
    		Cow
    		Sheep
    	     +	Pig
    	     -----------
    		Hotdog
    
    
    
    
    

      To:	@JOKESTERS
    Subj:	Priest discusses Ghosts


	A Priest was doing mass on Sunday.  He wanted to discuss
	ghosts, since his congregation was very worried about them.
	So he started asking his people:

	"Have any one of you ever heard of a ghost?"
	All the people raise their hands.

	So, he goes on: "Has any one ever heard a ghost?"
	This time, most of the people raise their hands.




	"Has any one of you ever seen a ghost?" he continues.
	The priest sees a few less hands this time.

	The next question he asks is: "Have any one of you ever
	touched a ghost?"
	A handful of people say yes.

	"Has anyone ever had sex with a ghost?"
	One guy in the back aisle raises his hand.

	"YOU'VE HAD SEX WITH A GHOST?!"





      "Oh, sorry, Father", replied the guy.  "I thought you said 'goat'."


     

    
    **********'s burgers
     Stale white bread!
    Ever see a donkey
     Drop down dead?
    
                    (Traditional)
    

    I see this notes conference excelled itself when I posted the base note
    in 1990.
    
    In the meantime I am the proud owner of the only biodynamic cows in
    Connaught, which came from Ulster! 
    
    What happened to all the other cracksmen who wrote replies here? 
    
    It seems clear that several of them had symptoms at the time:-)
    
    Seriously, this problem will prove to be a suitable epitaph to 19 years
    of the tories, and it should finally sink them. I read a description of
    the 18 tear old girl who got the illness and is in a coma now.
    Terrible. The way the beef industry has developed is a sickener from
    the plastic bales throgh the meat factories to what ends up on your
    plate.
    
    Kevin  
         

    
    >only biodynamic cows in connaught, which came from Ulster
    
     ..and owned by an offaly  man.
    
    Immediate slaughter..raze the land! -) -)...What in gods name is a 
    biodynamic cow...Hows does it work?..
    
    Who knows what to believe or who to believe..When you hear the
    folk from the Irish Dept of agriculture saying we have the best methods
    of control in our beef industy...and the next item on the news is about
    a $100 million fine to be imposed for beer irregularities...say no more
    
    Where were the Irish cases located..?..I saw a few mad looking cows 
    passing through offaly and kilkenny a while back...though it was
    probably the abject misery of their location that had them in dispair.
    TO say nothing about the mental anquish of having to face a local
    every day...
    
    
    
    
    
    

    >    Immediate slaughter..raze the land! -) -)...What in gods name is a
    >    biodynamic cow...Hows does it work?..
    
    Ah, I'm throwing pearls before swine again.
    
    The Biodynamic Agricultural Association in Ireland is one of three
    organisations which can certify organic farms with Dept Ag and EU.
    
    Biodynamics is about organic farming plus the use of homepathic methods
    to increase the dynamic biological activity of the soil. It is based on
    the work of Rudolf Steiner and there are some 3000 biodynamic farms
    worldwide, and 20 in Ireland. I got interested in it when I learned that 
    my grandfather used such methods. They were known as "old pishrogues" and 
    apparently the priests made a great drive against them in the 30's. 
    
    There is a biodynamic farm at Grangemockler, Co Tipperary (?). It is a
    camphill community which provides a marvellous caring environment for 
    people with special needs and disabilities. The Camphill communities
    were founded by a Jewish refugee from Austria after WW2.
    
    Organic livestock are not fed any animal or processed material, but
    have to be given organic standard feeding. They also have to be bred
    from organic stock, so they should be free of the diseases which are
    spread through the "food chain" as the conventional madness is called.
    Organic farmers are also forbidden to buy from the horror shows known
    as livestock marts, which are excellent disease interchange locations.
    Of course any stock requiring vetinary treatment or suffering from a
    disease cannot be sold as organic, and the "live trade" is taboo. Stock
    must be kept in stress-free conditions and slaughtered humanely without
    long waiting periods in fear-producing situations.
    
    Kevin

    
    Oh right...they are the guy's who play the music to the cows...Bit of
    the 'WHO' and the 'pistols' and sure no doubt the milk would flow
    pure and sweet...
    
    Actually it is fascinating about some of those old cures...Only problem
    I ever saw was it very very hard to get any information out of the
    older generation about them..unless in the immediate family....and so many 
    were lost. 
    
     
    
     
    
    

    Yes, there is a problem of lost knowlege. Rudolf Steiner wrote down
    much in 1924, but we don't know where he got it from. My uncles had it
    passed onto them as oral learning, and believed it was an aincient
    wisdom going back to the pre-christian Celts. Anthropologists found
    children in the Western Isles of Scotland reeling off family trees
    going back that far in the 1930's so why shouldn't such traditions be
    that old ?
    
    The most important preparation in biodynamics is made by burying the
    dung of a cow in a cow's horn for 6 months over the winter and then
    stirring the resulting preparation into a bucket of water for 1 hour.
    The liquid is then spayed out on the land and apparently stimulates an
    enourmous increase in the microbiological organisms which live in the
    soil and interact with plant roots. Has anyone else ever heard of Irish
    farmers using such "soil-activators" ? This may sound like a joke but
    there are universities doing research on this, really.
    
    On a more mundane note, I have heard that 200 workers are being laid
    off at Larry G's plant in Ballaghadreen and Rathkeale (?). Curiously,
    there is not a word about this in the paper, they are trying to keep it
    quiet I suppose as Larry is up to his tail in debt.
    
    
    Kevin    

    
    
    .I was always abit wary of offaly men...as is everybody who has to step
    over the little brosna...But I think we should fence ye off at this
    stage ...-) -)...Burying cow sh$** in cows horns...No wonder the cows
    looking at that are going mad......
    
    

    I just got word my cousins herd in east cork had to be
    killed because just 1 of the cattle had mad cow disease.
    It is a real pity.
    
    Everyone's been talking about beef - does the disease
    affect dairy products in any way? Does anyone know?
    
    /g 

>    Everyone's been talking about beef - does the disease
>    affect dairy products in any way? Does anyone know?
    
nobody knows for certain exactly what's affected, although the general feeling 
at the moment is that the contaminant (not a disease or virus, but a protein 
of some description) is confined to the animal's brain and spinal cord; beef 
products that don't contain these items, as well as dairy products, are 
*supposed* to be unaffected, although, as you can imagine, there's plenty of 
opposing debate about this, and I guess that, at the end of the day, who a 
person chooses to believe is dependant on how paranoid they are!

From my personal point of view, I'm not going to go into a blind panic about 
this and try to avoid anything that's been within a light year of a cow, but 
on the other hand, I won't be so foolhardy as to eat things like `economy' 
mince that contains God knows what!

Chris.

    Just as a point of interest......I went to the local super market here
    in Belgium on saturday and all the beef steaks were labled "Irish
    Steak", usualy they don't bother with the origin so I assume that the
    continent sees BSE as an English thing.
    
    How rampant is it in Ireland ?
    
    Shaun.

    There is BSE in Ireland, as there is in France, but nowhere near as
    much as there is in the UK. The main reason for this is that Ireland
    and France, when they find BSE in a cow, slaughter the entire herd
    immediately, as advised by the EU vets. The UK should have been doing
    this, and should be doing this. It didn't, isn't and has no plans to do
    it. I happen to know that France and Ireland (and the other few
    countries in the EU with BSE) have followed the EU vets' advice and are
    doing it, which is why there are fewer outbreaks, and the number is
    falling.
    
    This is yet another issue where I believe the current Government is in
    error, in a big way.
    
    Laurie.

    Prime Scottish beef is also suffering from the "British" label although
    BSE is almost non-existent in Scottish herds. Northern irish (including
    unionist) farmers are now claiming to have more in common with the
    Republic than with the UK in an attempt to distance themselves from the
    current scare.

    Hmm.. thinks..
    
    I can't understand why the British Government is proposing such
    a long period -- 4 or 6(?) years -- over which herds will be
    slaughtered (and compensated for). I also fail to see why they 
    still resist implementing the practise of killing a whole herd 
    when one animal in it is infected, particularly when their current 
    proposals have been rejected emphatically by the French, and probably 
    more EU countries by the end of today. 
    
    Wholescale slaughter of herds that caught Foot and Mouth disease
    in the 60's was routinely followed by mountains of carcasses being
    burned in open fields. So why not now?
    
    The crucial hurdle for the British meat industry is to restore the 
    confidence of meat eaters and governments all over Europe and beyond. 
    The Government here seem reluctant to take the necessary steps. It's
    all the fault of the media, and burger chains like McDonalds for
    blowing this small local difficulty into a crisis, they bleat.
    
    I am not the first person to venture that income tax cuts to
    the Great British public in the run up to the next General Election
    may have something to do with it. And I probably won't be the last.
    
    Electorates are notoriously fickle in their voting habits. Collective 
    memory is conveniently short when there is a payout at stake. 
    
    Buy a lottery ticket -- it could be you! Buy British beef -- it's
    perfectly safe to eat. On a question of scale in a population of
    55 million, the risks of winning the lottery jackpot and dying from 
    JCD are roughly the same.
    
    John
      

re
    Wholescale slaughter of herds that caught Foot and Mouth disease
    in the 60's was routinely followed by mountains of carcasses being
    burned in open fields. So why not now?


Because Foot and Mouth disease is passed very quickly from animal to animal,
animal to man by simple contact, sometimes even from just walking in the same
field. For a cow to get BSE it has to consume BSE infected feed. 

Simon

RE:          <<< Note 808.27 by METSYS::BENNETT "Straight no chaser.." >>>
    
>>    I can't understand why the British Government is proposing such
>>    a long period -- 4 or 6(?) years -- over which herds will be
>>    slaughtered (and compensated for). I also fail to see why they 
>>    still resist implementing the practise of killing a whole herd 
>>    when one animal in it is infected, particularly when their current 
>>    proposals have been rejected emphatically by the French, and probably 
>>    more EU countries by the end of today. 
    
    I can see why. The current UK proposal, spanning, as you say, 5-6
    years, is on the basis of killing 15,000 cattle a week; that's nearly
    4.7 million animals. Speaking of pure logistics, that's quite a task. I
    can and should be argued that this is a problem of the UK Gummint's own
    making, but that doesn't solve the problem.
    
>>    Wholescale slaughter of herds that caught Foot and Mouth disease
>>    in the 60's was routinely followed by mountains of carcasses being
>>    burned in open fields. So why not now?
    
    Aside from Simon's earlier point, there are a couple of other things to
    consider:
    
    1) Britain now has more than 11 million cattle, which is a lot more
       than in the 60's (I forget the exact difference,)
    2) BSE is not a virus or a bacterium, it's a form of protein, and isn't
       "killed" by heat. Disposal is not a trivial matter. For instance,
       it's still not known if it's present in bonemeal, the by-product of
       burning the cattle, and for this reason, the British Government has
       (last week) banned its use as a fertiliser.
    
>>    The crucial hurdle for the British meat industry is to restore the 
>>    confidence of meat eaters and governments all over Europe and beyond. 
>>    The Government here seem reluctant to take the necessary steps. It's
>>    all the fault of the media, and burger chains like McDonalds for
>>    blowing this small local difficulty into a crisis, they bleat.
    
    Hmmm. That's very true, and it seems to me that the British Government
    is indeed failing to grasp the nettle, but it's also true that the
    media and burger chains are indeed blowing things out of all
    proportion. It's a fact that British beef is "safer" now than it was 10
    years ago when BSE was first discovered. In fact, the steps that are in
    place are doing a very good job of keeping BSE out of the food chain.
    Where the Government is failing, is in bringing the incidence of BSE
    down. Switzerland, for instance, has one of the highest incidences of
    BSE in Europe, closely followed by Ireland, but both are way behind the
    UK, probably due to their slaughter policies.
    
>>    I am not the first person to venture that income tax cuts to
>>    the Great British public in the run up to the next General Election
>>    may have something to do with it. And I probably won't be the last.
    
    Your hypothesis is crap.
    
>>    Electorates are notoriously fickle in their voting habits. Collective 
>>    memory is conveniently short when there is a payout at stake. 
    
    Undeniably true.
    
>>    Buy a lottery ticket -- it could be you! Buy British beef -- it's
>>    perfectly safe to eat. On a question of scale in a population of
>>    55 million, the risks of winning the lottery jackpot and dying from 
>>    JCD are roughly the same.
    
    Also true. In fact, anyone who ate cheap beef-based meat products prior
    to about 1988 has already ingested more than enough of whatever it is
    that causes BSE/CJD, if such a link exists. I haven't stopped eating
    beef, British or otherwise, nor shall I.
    
    Cheers, Laurie.

    Re: .29
    
    >> Your hypothesis is crap.
    
    Why beat around the bush Laurie, when one word would have sufficed?
    
    Hypothesis.
    
    jb ;-)
    

    Fair comment!
    
    Laurie ;^)

    I don't care what anyone says, you still get the best joints from
    hippie cows;-)
    
    Dermot

      re .22
      
    
        >Everyone's been talking about beef - does the disease
        >affect dairy products in any way? Does anyone know?
    
    We are in the dark about this. We simply don't know how the immune
    system deals with new varieties of JCD or how BSE spreads. So it may be
    safe to drink milk from cows with BSE and then again it might not.
    Given the long incubation period of the disease, it may take a long
    time to find out.  European law insists that milk is pasteurised before
    it is sold nowadays but that would not necessarily 'kill' the BSE
    protein which transfers it. 
    
    When the EC law insisting on pasteurisation came in there was a
    campaign against it in the UK and now named consumers can buy
    unpasteurised milk from registered suppliers. There is a herd of
    biodynamic cows in Sussex which provide such milk to local consumers.
    Probably much safer and healthier than "normal" milk as it is free of
    antibiotics and will have a complete flora of healthy bacteria which
    are essential for the immune system. They are an interesting herd,
    deriving from a sussex breed which was originally bred for ploughing
    oxen! The last team of Oxen were disbanded near Eastbourne in the
    1930's. This reply is really just an excuse to tell you about them.    
    
    BTW how did dem Darcies down in Cork get a dose? I think we should be
    told. Were they importing heathen Brit cows into County Cork? Holy
    Mother of G, whatever next?
    
    Kevin