Mad Cow in Indiana...?

Thank you FDA, USDA, Department of Agriculture, Indiana media, and all of the rest of you who were supposed to be protecting us and chose to keep us in the dark. No wonder Bush doesn't want anyone testing for mad cow disease. It would appear that it could already be here.

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow
The Associated Press
Published: May 29, 2007

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

Today CNN announced that four people in Northern Indiana (Ft Wayne area,) have died within the last 5 months of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare brain disease that can be caused by eating meat infected by Mad Cow (or by eating brains, so I suppose these people could all belong to a secret, brain-eating cult. I've heard Ft. Wayne is an odd city.)

There is almost no news coverage of this here in Indiana.

I found one story, just breaking, on the Indy Star; and it stated that "the four deaths appear to be from classic CJD and not related to mad cow disease, which is linked to the rare variant CJD found in humans."

Personally, I can't say that I am feeling the trust these days.

Four cases in 5 months? The average is apparently only one case out of 1 million people, over an entire year. Something is definitely 'up' in Ft. Wayne.

And by the way, did you know that the Department of Agriculture is only testing %1 of the meat we eat - in spite of the fact that several known cases of mad cow disease have already been found in the U.S.?

And now they are trying to keep anyone from testing more than 1%. What are they afraid will come to light with more extensive testing?

This is a recipe for disaster.

I'll bet hardly anyone knows that:

Three cases of mad cow disease have been found in the United States. The first, in December 2003 in Washington state, was in a cow that had been imported from Canada. The second, in 2005, was in a cow born in Texas. The third was confirmed last year in an Alabama cow.

The Consumer's Union is covering this on their website. Another must-read site for further information -- Mad Cow Disease: Is the USDA covering up an epidemic?

Mainstream media has been failing to do its job. It takes years for this disease to show up, and without any real and ethical oversight under the Bush Administration, we are sitting ducks.