OT: Mad Cow Disease
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: OT: Mad Cow Disease
- From: b*@tiger.hsc.edu (Bill Shear)
- Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 07:32:23 -0700 (MST)
Has there been any noise
>implicating blood meal (as there has been for bonemeal) in transmission of
>that brain-rotting mad cow disease to humans?
I have not heard any of the "noise" implicating bonemeal in any health hazard.
The mad cow flap in Britain (according to level-headed British colleagues
of mine) was mostly a media-generated hysteria.
It is not known if mad cow disease, a spongiform encephalopathy (makes
holes in the brain) is in fact the same as the human Creutzfeld-Jacob
syndrome. Maybe, maybe not.
There was not one single proven case of a human getting the disease from beef.
The danger supposedly came about because cows were being fed other cows
(and sheep), ground up. This is not legal in the United States. Since the
dried blood you can buy in the garden center is of domestic origin, there
is no danger. Much if not most of it comes from pigs in any case.
If there really were any danger, you would be at far greater risk consuming
any meat product whatsoever. You're going to sprinkle small amounts of
this stuff on ornamental plants, for gosh sakes, not spoon it down like
sugar!
Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@tiger.hsc.edu>
