Mad About Beef

The U.S. government is going to extraordinary lengths to downplay the likelihood that the epidemic of "mad cow disease" (BSE) currently sweeping the European Continent can happen here. On April 12, the USDA created a new "home page" for BSE on its APHIS website expressly designed to mitigate American concerns. In answers to hypothetical questions, the USDA reports that BSE is not in America, and even if it were, transmission to humans is virtually impossible. Both of these assertions are suspect. At least 300,000 cattle have been reported to die from a related disorder, called "downer's disease", and on April 8, 1996, a 53 year old Oregon man came down with a disease remarkably similar to those affecting British patients. In downgrading the risk of BSE to Americans, the USDA ignores other data that should give us all pause: BSE is not the first disease that has jumped species lines from bovines to humans. Brucellosis, a serious systemic infection; E. coli 0157:H7 and salmonella, both cause potential fatal intestinal diarrheas; bovine tuberculosis; and possibly lymphoma have all been documented to transfer from beef or dairy cattle to humans. BSE is potentially the most serious transgressor of all.

BSE (for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease which has affected over 160,000 cattle in Britain, with isolated outbreaks in eleven other countries by 1995. The root causes of the epidemic of BSE may never be fully understood. One disturbing element is now clear: feeding traditional herbivores meat byproducts, as British (and American) dairymen allegedly did in the mid-1980's, is courting disaster. British cattle were fed offal and other "protein" supplements from sheep carrying a neurodegenerative disease known as scrapie. As a result, there are 155,600 head of cattle in almost 33,000 herds diagnosed with BSE in Great Britain.

There is strong evidence to suggest this transpecies transmission is not limited to sheep and cattle. BSE-like disease has appeared in mink, cats, antelopes, and ostriches fed infected animal byproducts. A growing consensus among veterinarians and public health authorities in Great Britain is that cattle to human transference of BSE can occur. At least 13 cases of a human variant of BSE have been reported in Europe, three of them in people who were in direct contact with BSE infected cattle. The human variant of "mad cow disease" appears to be related to the rare (1 in a million persons/year) neurodegenerative condition known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Normally, we are protected from acquiring food-borne disease on at least two levels: the USDA "certifies", by the inspection seal, that the meat we eat is void of pathogens, and any pathogens remaining in the meat that gets through this screening is rendered harmless by cooking. The newest evidence in the case of potentially BSE infected meat, shows that we are terribly vulnerable. A USDA inspection of a beef carcass cannot pick up subtle clues of neurodegeneration in the original life animal. No test exists for the suspected agent of BSE, a proteinaceous particle known as a prion. And prions themselves are unprecedented infectious agents that resist destruction by standard means of disinfection, including heat or UV radiation. Nor are we sufficiently armed to detect new BSE in either cattle or people. The surveillance system the USDA uses to monitor potential BSE cases only picks up overtly sick BSE infected cattle.

These deficiencies are particularly disturbing in light of the liklihood that a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has a latency period of 10 to 50 years. In spite of assurances to the contrary, the existence of another transmissible spongiform encephalopathy already exists in U.S. cattle in the form of "downer cow syndrome". Will it prove transmissable?

This faulty screening system is made more so by inadequate surveillance of meat byproducts such as ruminant proteins, fertilizers, and cosmetics. Prior to 1986, the U.S. imported 14 tons of ruminant protein for animal feed. Given the British experience, it is likely that some protein sources carried the BSE agent. Today, the USDA asserts that it has restricted the importation of live ruminants from countries where BSE is known to exist. But potentially highly infectious products, e.g., bone meal, offal, and blood meal, derived from ruminants are still being imported under special permits for use in cosmetics. And up until March of 1996, the USDA permitted the feeding of ruminant derived meat and bone meal to cattle. As a result, BSE could be incubating in hundreds of thousands of cattle.

Reluctantly, the British government accepted a report from a prestigious advisory committee that concluded that at least 10 cases of human neurodegenerative disease were BSE related. This advisory heralds the prospect of a greater outbreak. BSE is likely to remain a huge problem in Europe and elsewhere around the world as 450,000 calves are exported for the European veal trade. Statistical analysis shows that at least 72,000 of these exported calves could be carrying BSE while appearing to be well.

Why are we suddenly vulnerable to new infectious diseases from cattle? Human health risks from animal rearing practices have existed since we domesticated animals. In 1972, the FDA issued the Swann Report, a policy statement on feeding antibiotics to animals. The Swann commission concluded that feeding animal feed supplements greatly increases the risk of humans getting antibiotic-resistant bacteria. As proof of this likelihood, in August of 1976 Salmonella infected calves at a dairy farm passed their infection to the farmer, his pregnant daughter, and ultimately her child. But the FDA still permits valuable antibiotics like fluoroquinolone in hog feed. The mistaken rationale for the use of antibiotics in animal feed drives our continuing flirtation with evolutionary disaster. What happens to animals can and does happen to people.

We have gotten on a cycle of increasing dependence on livestock rearing practices that create the seeds of contagion.. The use of antibiotics allows for more animals to be raised within smaller confines. Protein supplements allow for greater efficiencies in beef and dairy production. Overuse of antibiotics in hospitals and homes decrease resistance in humans and cattle to various antibiotic resistant pathogens.

What is the answer? Today 23 million cattle are processed through America's 8,500 feedlots. 1.6 million of these animals are known to get sick. At least 241,500 die, mostly from infectious diarrheal disease. Some 230 feedlots have an average of 58,700 head per lot, setting the stage for outbreaks of infectious disease. This mode of livestock promotion greatly increases the chance for infectious outbreaks in cattle. The message of BSE is that in neglecting the welfare of out livestock, we may be sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

It is time to re-evaluate how we raise our cattle. If livestock are going to continue to be in the human diet, conditions must change. Is there an alternative to rearing dense crowded herds and feedlots where growth is promoted by the concentrated, common feed supplements, the conditions that encourage animal to animal spread of any infectious agent?

While we do not yet know how stress, antibiotics, hormones, and overcrowding are specifically linked to the occurrence of BSE, we do know these conditions foment disease. Does this mean giving up beef or chicken entirely to assure safety? Not necessarily. Cattle raised on open ranges and so-called "free range" chickens may be safer substitutes. Free range fed cattle will not produce the amounts of beef and dairy products that steroid fed calves will, but what will be produced will likely be healthier to eat. Thousands of sick feedlot cattle will not need to be incinerated- a process that is unlikely to destroy the BSE pathogen. The free-range alternative also puts cattle back into their evolutionary niche as herbivores, and out of harms way from protein supplement derived pathogens.

At this point in time, the U.S. beef industry stands adamantly against the free range alternative and denies BSE poses any risks. But, our beef producers have the most to lose by denying the BSE problem exists. Such denial will only lead to what we are witnessing in Britain, where millions of pounds are being expended in incineration costs and an entire industry is collapsing at the cost of billions of pounds. It may be wiser to change the methods of raising cattle now. Doing so will only build trust in an industry that is quickly losing merit. Yes, the cattle will be "smaller" and will not produce the dairy and beef amounts that are artificially being produced today. A smaller cow for a smaller price. In the meantime, the safest way for humans to stay clear of this disease may be to abstain from including animal and their byproducts in our diets altogether.

Center for Ethics and Toxics, P.O. Box 673, Gualala, CA 95445