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Imnotdutch
butler monkey
Julez said:
Do you like to eat meat?
- Thread starter M.O.D
- Start date
From: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-2001292672,00.html
THE president of the American Red Cross said yesterday that she would be afraid of having a blood transfusion in Britain because of the risks of catching the human form of “mad cow” disease. Bernadine Healy said that even if she were on holiday in Britain and needed emergency treatment, she would do everything she could not to have one.
“We do not know if there is a silent reservoir of people who are carrying this disease who may be blood donors,” she said. Ms Healy said that, despite checks put in place by the National Blood Service last year, there was still a risk that British blood was contaminated with vCJD.
Her comments come just a week before the American Red Cross, which supplies about half the transfusion blood in the United States, imposes a ban on donors who have lived or travelled in Europe for more than six months.
THE president of the American Red Cross said yesterday that she would be afraid of having a blood transfusion in Britain because of the risks of catching the human form of “mad cow” disease. Bernadine Healy said that even if she were on holiday in Britain and needed emergency treatment, she would do everything she could not to have one.
“We do not know if there is a silent reservoir of people who are carrying this disease who may be blood donors,” she said. Ms Healy said that, despite checks put in place by the National Blood Service last year, there was still a risk that British blood was contaminated with vCJD.
Her comments come just a week before the American Red Cross, which supplies about half the transfusion blood in the United States, imposes a ban on donors who have lived or travelled in Europe for more than six months.
Imnotdutch
butler monkey
A nice show of ignorance by yet another person in a public position......
If she really felt that way she would ban blood from anybody who has lived in Europe at any point in their lives. The prions involved are very long lived and 6 months isnt shit to them. So the gesture is pointless and futile!!!
Way to go.....another well informed decision!!
I'm also pretty sure that this problem wasnt confined to Europe....we just made it very public.
You also forgot to mention this point made in the article:
"The chances of contracting vCJD by a blood transfusion remain theoretical because no one has yet been infected in this way and scientists are still not sure if it is possible."
Nice solid scientific data wasnt even used to back up this plan. As I said.....nice well-informed decision.
If she really felt that way she would ban blood from anybody who has lived in Europe at any point in their lives. The prions involved are very long lived and 6 months isnt shit to them. So the gesture is pointless and futile!!!
Way to go.....another well informed decision!!
I'm also pretty sure that this problem wasnt confined to Europe....we just made it very public.
You also forgot to mention this point made in the article:
"The chances of contracting vCJD by a blood transfusion remain theoretical because no one has yet been infected in this way and scientists are still not sure if it is possible."
Nice solid scientific data wasnt even used to back up this plan. As I said.....nice well-informed decision.
Weapon X said:
Last edited:
The Dude
New member
Luekosis. Well, that is caused by a common virus. Marek's Disease is cause by one type of luekosis virus and all chickens are vaccinated for it (not for your health, but for the birds' health). There are other forms of luekosis, the most common affecting the skin. USDA inspectors look for this in processing plants and condem the small number of birds with skin (or other forms) or luekosis. However, the article talks mainly about caged layers. Unless you're eating a lot of canned soup and other highly processed, low quality chicken sources, you're not eating chicken from layers. You're getting your chicken meat from broilers and roasters which are not kept in cages. Your presentation of that article and the article itself are done in such a way to sway the opinion of people that have no idea how chicken is really produced. It's easier to manipulate the uniformed.
I'm against animal cruelty, but a fact is a fact: We ARE animals ourselves. Would a lion in the wild show me the same respect and courtesy as a "creature of the earth" or would it run me down and rip my throat out to get at my meat?
We need to drop this back-slapping humanity bullshit. It isn't the eating of meat that is the health problem, it is the greed and corner-cutting of meat processing that we need to be worried about. It's all the shit they are dumping in the food to increase profits that is the culprit for increased infected meat.
For an eye-opener read Eric Shlosser's "Fast Food Nation". Excellent book that will make you think 5 times before heading to Mickey D's or Burger Stink.
Look at all the normal men growing small breasts, colon cancer, and 8 year old girls with b-cups. There's something hormonal going on with that food!
We need to drop this back-slapping humanity bullshit. It isn't the eating of meat that is the health problem, it is the greed and corner-cutting of meat processing that we need to be worried about. It's all the shit they are dumping in the food to increase profits that is the culprit for increased infected meat.
For an eye-opener read Eric Shlosser's "Fast Food Nation". Excellent book that will make you think 5 times before heading to Mickey D's or Burger Stink.
Look at all the normal men growing small breasts, colon cancer, and 8 year old girls with b-cups. There's something hormonal going on with that food!
The Dude
New member
Your statement about men with small breasts, colon cancer, and 8 yr. olds with breasts being due to hormones in animals is bull. First of all, hormones ARE NOT FED to commerical livestock in the U.S. It's illegal to do so and no company is willing to risk a major recall that can, if one quick stroke out of nowhere, destroy that company. Remember Hudson Foods? One big recall and that was it. They had to sell at an obscene discount or they would have gone of out business. One recall did that (and it was over potential bacterial conamination...just imagine the uproar if it was due to someone they were intentionally putting in the beef!).
Men with small breasts = overeating and laziness = fat.
Colon cancer = better detection, longer life spans, and an increasingly poor diet full of sugar and saturated fats.
Eight year old breasts = the continuation of earlier and earlier development of humans thanks to better nutrition, health care, and rearing environment.
I know what goes in the beef, pork, and chicken we eat from firsthand EXPERIENCE. I'm not getting it from writings by those with certain agendas. If something screwy was going on, believe me, I'd stand up and say something screwy was going on.
Men with small breasts = overeating and laziness = fat.
Colon cancer = better detection, longer life spans, and an increasingly poor diet full of sugar and saturated fats.
Eight year old breasts = the continuation of earlier and earlier development of humans thanks to better nutrition, health care, and rearing environment.
I know what goes in the beef, pork, and chicken we eat from firsthand EXPERIENCE. I'm not getting it from writings by those with certain agendas. If something screwy was going on, believe me, I'd stand up and say something screwy was going on.
TxCollegeguy
New member
Well it's time for me to whip out the skillet and stir up those beef stew chunks
The Dude - True, not all meat processors use hormones in their beef. Some Texan ranchers claim not to. But the vast majority still use hormones to increase the size of the yield. Here is an article I found on how the EU has taken measures to correct this practice while the US and Canada (as usual) lag behind in putting People ahead of Profits:
(taken from http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/SecondOpinion/secondopinion_112.html)
Battling its own scourge, the European Union is concerned with hormone-injected American beef, which is used to make cattle grow more quickly. The Union banned hormone-injected beef in the 1980s, and continues to resist all efforts to lift the prohibition.
Hormones in Beef May Cause Cancer
The EU says there is enough evidence to be concerned that the hormones in beef likely add up to an increased risk for cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture say “hooey” to that. Their scientists have conducted a “risk assessment” demonstrating that certain levels of hormones represent an “acceptable” risk.
“What, me worry?” is what they are saying.
The Europeans chime back that number-crunching Americans are obsessed with trying to figure out the risk associated with the six hormones currently being used, when there is really no sound scientific method to quantify all the evidence from studies and accomplish this numbers game with any precision.
Their position: since there is no way to reach a definitive risk assessment, why take a chance? The Europeans want to keep the ban unless science can prove the hormones are safe. In health politics, this is often referred to as “the precautionary principle.”
Early Studies Bolster European View
Meanwhile, there are early studies linking some hormones to breast, testicular and prostate cancer.
The Europeans are particularly concerned about the most widely-used hormone injected into beef cattle, called 17-beta estradiol. Population and experimental studies from throughout the world have shown consistently that this hormone is a risk factor in breast cancer.
Several studies have shown that calves given 17-beta estradiol had smaller thymus glands than those not given the hormone. This gland helps the immune system to develop.
And a scientific committee of the European Union believes pre-pubescent children may also be at risk for damage to their reproductive systems because of 17-beta estradiol. There has also been some concern that this and other hormones may be contributing to precocious sexual development based on very preliminary U.S. studies.
Americans Say Europeans Protecting Own Beef
All this concern hasn’t impressed the American health protection bureaucracy and the farming community. There is widespread sentiment that the Europeans are protecting their own beef from competition, and have concocted a fictitious hormone problem.
Naturally, American farmers and their supporters are completely objective about the current science, and don’t give two hoots about the food money they save on hormone-injected cattle when they can get them to market more quickly.
The U.S. has reacted to the European ban by imposing trade sanctions on several types of imports. Britain, however, has been spared because the British have indicated they were pulled into the ban, kicking and screaming, by the other European nations.
Of course, given the spread of Mad Cow disease in Europe (which, it should be emphasized, began in Britain), beef farmers in France, Germany and Spain, might be a tad worried that marketing American beef ‘a la hormone’ might upset already worried consumers, causing them to shun all beef products.
In fact, it was a consumer boycott organized in France and Germany that helped trigger Europe’s ban of American hormone-injected beef back in the mid-1980s.
U.S. Questions European Science
The U.S. government blamed this consumer movement for the ban, calling it scientifically baseless and emotionally-driven, and has since called into question any science offered by the European Union in support of its continued ban on American hormone-injected beef.
International agencies have generally taken the American side, not so much because there is strong evidence of the beef being risk-free, but because it is argued that the Europeans have, for example, not followed the appropriate steps for conducting a risk assessment.
The European Union has responded to the overall judgement by ordering more scientific studies.
So, in a situation of uncertainty, where do you draw the line? Do you take precautionary measures in the public interest? Or do you give industry the benefit of the doubt?
I think I’ll have a salad for lunch.
(taken from http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/SecondOpinion/secondopinion_112.html)
Battling its own scourge, the European Union is concerned with hormone-injected American beef, which is used to make cattle grow more quickly. The Union banned hormone-injected beef in the 1980s, and continues to resist all efforts to lift the prohibition.
Hormones in Beef May Cause Cancer
The EU says there is enough evidence to be concerned that the hormones in beef likely add up to an increased risk for cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture say “hooey” to that. Their scientists have conducted a “risk assessment” demonstrating that certain levels of hormones represent an “acceptable” risk.
“What, me worry?” is what they are saying.
The Europeans chime back that number-crunching Americans are obsessed with trying to figure out the risk associated with the six hormones currently being used, when there is really no sound scientific method to quantify all the evidence from studies and accomplish this numbers game with any precision.
Their position: since there is no way to reach a definitive risk assessment, why take a chance? The Europeans want to keep the ban unless science can prove the hormones are safe. In health politics, this is often referred to as “the precautionary principle.”
Early Studies Bolster European View
Meanwhile, there are early studies linking some hormones to breast, testicular and prostate cancer.
The Europeans are particularly concerned about the most widely-used hormone injected into beef cattle, called 17-beta estradiol. Population and experimental studies from throughout the world have shown consistently that this hormone is a risk factor in breast cancer.
Several studies have shown that calves given 17-beta estradiol had smaller thymus glands than those not given the hormone. This gland helps the immune system to develop.
And a scientific committee of the European Union believes pre-pubescent children may also be at risk for damage to their reproductive systems because of 17-beta estradiol. There has also been some concern that this and other hormones may be contributing to precocious sexual development based on very preliminary U.S. studies.
Americans Say Europeans Protecting Own Beef
All this concern hasn’t impressed the American health protection bureaucracy and the farming community. There is widespread sentiment that the Europeans are protecting their own beef from competition, and have concocted a fictitious hormone problem.
Naturally, American farmers and their supporters are completely objective about the current science, and don’t give two hoots about the food money they save on hormone-injected cattle when they can get them to market more quickly.
The U.S. has reacted to the European ban by imposing trade sanctions on several types of imports. Britain, however, has been spared because the British have indicated they were pulled into the ban, kicking and screaming, by the other European nations.
Of course, given the spread of Mad Cow disease in Europe (which, it should be emphasized, began in Britain), beef farmers in France, Germany and Spain, might be a tad worried that marketing American beef ‘a la hormone’ might upset already worried consumers, causing them to shun all beef products.
In fact, it was a consumer boycott organized in France and Germany that helped trigger Europe’s ban of American hormone-injected beef back in the mid-1980s.
U.S. Questions European Science
The U.S. government blamed this consumer movement for the ban, calling it scientifically baseless and emotionally-driven, and has since called into question any science offered by the European Union in support of its continued ban on American hormone-injected beef.
International agencies have generally taken the American side, not so much because there is strong evidence of the beef being risk-free, but because it is argued that the Europeans have, for example, not followed the appropriate steps for conducting a risk assessment.
The European Union has responded to the overall judgement by ordering more scientific studies.
So, in a situation of uncertainty, where do you draw the line? Do you take precautionary measures in the public interest? Or do you give industry the benefit of the doubt?
I think I’ll have a salad for lunch.
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