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NB: This RealAudio stream contains FTRs 294 and 295 in sequence. Each is a 30-minute broadcast.
1. Presenting more information about the outbreaks of foot-and-mouth and mad-cow diseases, this program begins with discussion of contingency plans to handle foot-and-mouth should the disease break out in the United States. These plans entail the coordinated efforts of a number of governmental agencies and could be viewed as a step that, in certain respects, would move the country closer to a form of limited martial law. “The first comprehensive exercise about how the nation would contain foot-and-mouth disease showed that an outbreak could be stopped only with the combined strength of all federal disaster agencies, including the military, Agriculture Department officials have said. After decades of relying largely on state and local governments to help contain animal diseases, the Department of Agriculture asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a plan to combat this one as forcefully as if it threatened human lives, said Clifford Oliver, the director of Agriculture Department’s office of crisis planning. ‘We were coming to the realization that state and local government would be overwhelmed and the U.S.D.A. would be overwhelmed if foot-and-mouth broke out,’ Mr. Oliver said. With Britain, one of the most advanced agricultural nations, enduring an epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease and British troops belatedly called in for mass burials of hundreds of thousands of slaughtered animals, American farmers and ranchers began lobbying their state agriculture chiefs for better planning. Those officials recently urged Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman to find out what the rest of the government could do to contain an outbreak. The federal Catastrophic Disaster Response Group, which normally worries about bio-terrorism or industrial disasters, organized the table-top exercise for the Agriculture Department on Wednesday, bringing together representatives of 26 agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Interior, Energy and Health and Human Services, Mr. Oliver said. The exercise confirmed fears that without the entire government working to contain it, the disease would spread like wildfire if it ever reached this country.” (“Cattle Disease Poses Threat to Run Wild, U.S. Finds” by Elizabeth Becker; New York Times; 4/17/2001; p. A15.)
2. Interestingly (and perhaps significantly), an international commission studying international regulation of biological warfare development noted that strengthening an existing treaty would facilitate world-wide monitoring of foot-and-mouth disease. “Slow-moving talks on an effective anti-cheating regime for an international treaty banning germ weapons were given a fresh push yesterday when the chairman presented his own compromise draft as a basis for negotiation. Speaking on the first day of a three-week negotiating session, Tibor Toth of Hungary said he was optimistic that a verification protocol for the 1972 biological weapons treaty could be concluded by November when states that are party to the treaty hold their fifth review conference in Geneva. However the six-year old negotiations remain stalled on key aspects of the policing regime, notably concerning the scope and intrusiveness of on-site inspections and issues relating to export controls and technology transfer . . . . He [Toth] appealed to the 50 or so countries taking part in the talks to make concessions to conclude a protocol this year. He said a verification regime would help to head off attempts by rogue states to produce or acquire biological weapons capable of mass destruction of human, animal and plant life. Moreover, by strengthening international co-operation on disease surveillance it would also contribute to reducing deaths and illness from infectious diseases, whether natural or man-made. Foot-and-mouth disease is among those potentially covered by the protocol, Mr. Toth noted.” (“Draft Gives Fresh Push to Germ Warfare Pact” by Frances Williams; Financial Times; 4/24/2001; p. 4.)
3. A recent op-ed column raised the very question at the heart of the discussion set forth in FTR-287, namely, IS the outbreak of foot-and-mouth the result of biological warfare? The writer also raised another aspect of the line of inquiry presented in that program—the possibility that Iraq may have been involved in the deliberate spread of the disease. “Could the United States be at war and not know it? The current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom makes one wonder. Not about Britain’s plight specifically; there’s nothing to suggest that the epidemic there is an act of war. But consider how quickly and easily it has spread. Then consider a regime such as Iraq’s, which has demonstrated a commitment to developing biological weapons. Might such a nation find it advantageous to strike anonymously and biologically by spreading an economically devastating disease or a slow-acting toxin? This is not an abstract question. The Iraqi regime insists that the economic sanctions imposed on it are nothing less than a genocidal attack by the United States and the United Kingdom. The regime has said it is still fighting the Persian Gulf War, and that it will respond to the plight of the Palestinians . . . . Among the agents known to have been loaded into warheads are aflatoxin, a fungal toxin that can cause liver cancer, and wheat-cover smut, which destroys grain crops . . . . And if a slow-developing disease can’t be linked to the event that triggered it, how can a country prevent such attacks? How can it respond? Science might be able to address part of this problem. Subtle differences in varieties of biological agents can be analyzed and traced to certain regions. Other effects might have signatures that can be observed in victims.” (“If an Enemy Attacks, Will We Know It?” by Charles Duelfer; San Jose Mercury News; 4/24/2001; p. 7B.)
4. As noted in FTR-287, a recent U.N. study about the renascent Iraqi development programs for weapons of mass destruction warned of that country’s development of foot-and-mouth virus. (“Missiles, Viruses Still Trouble Experts” by the international staff. Financial Times; 3/2/2001; p. 5.)
5. “Iraq’s research into viruses—including polio, influenza, foot-and-mouth disease, the camelpox virus, infectious hemorrhagic conjuunctivitis virus and rotavirus—was also worrying.” (Idem.)
6. Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, the U.S. and Britain launched air strikes against Iraq shortly after George W. Bush became president. The possibility that the foot-and-mouth outbreak might stem from Iraqi biological warfare retaliation for Britain’s role in the strikes is not one that should be too readily cast aside. It is also interesting to note that, as the Charles Duelfer column excerpted noted above points out, genetic signatures of a given contagion-causing organism might yield clues as to the possible origin of the disease. “The strain of foot-and-mouth virus plaguing Britain’s farms was first detected in India more than a decade ago. Scientists have been tracking it across the world since then, but are no closer to determining how it got to England. . . . Experts have identified the virus causing the current outbreak in Europe as belonging to the Pan-Asia type zero strain. The subtype ravaging Britain is normally found in the Middle East and South Asia.” (“Foot-and-Mouth Trots Around Globe” by Emma Ross; San Jose Mercury News; 3/30/2001; p. 5A.) [Mr. Emory notes, in retrospect, that this outbreak is also interesting in light of Pakistani support for the Taliban and the long-standing conflict between that country and India.]
7. In the context of Saddam’s hostility to Britain, several additional facts should be taken into account. One is that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was raised by, and heavily influenced by his pro-Nazi, anti-British uncle. “At ten, he found a mentor in his maternal uncle, Khairallah al-Tulfah, a recently cashiered army officer whose hatred of British colonial rule was matched only by his admiration for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi ideals. . . . He learned to read by the light of an oil lamp and fed his spirit on his uncle’s tales of exploits with pro-German officers in the Iraqi army. Khairallah al-Tulfah had a dream that Arabs would one day be free of foreign occupation and foreign rule. The Germans, Khairallah said, were the only ones who respected the Arabs as equals. The British were just after their oil.” (The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq; by Kenneth Timmerman; copyright 1991 [HC]; by Houghton Mifflin Company; ISBN 0–395-59305–0; p.1.)
8. Khairallah was also deeply involved with the development of the Iraqi biological weapons program, which was known as the “General Directorate of Veterinary Services!” “Saddam Hussein was attracted early on to bacteriological weapons. They were cheap, relatively simple to manufacture, and potentially deadly. . . . On November 2, 1974, [Izzat] al-Douri signed a contract with the Paris-based Institut Merieux, to set up Iraq’s first bacteriological laboratory. The Iraqis explained that they needed to be able to manufacture large quantitites of vaccines in order to develop agricultural and animal production. The official Iraqi purchasing agency was called the General Directorate of Veterinary Services.” (Ibid.; p. 20.)
9. “Al Douri’s success won him a promotion and made him a de facto member of the team, the three-man Strategic Planning Committee, along with Saddam, Khairallah, and Adnan Hamdani.” (Ibid.; pp. 20–21.)
10. One interesting detail concerning the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain concerns reports of human infections with the disease. “Government hopes of persuading tourists back to the countryside suffered a serious setback yesterday when a slaughterman in north-west England was suspected of catching foot-and-mouth disease. The Department of Health said a man involved in the mass cull in Cumbria was suffering blistering which indicated he had become infected with the disease, although final results from medical tests would not be available for a day or two. The news came as the government faced growing concern about the health risks of burning carcasses on mass funeral pyres and seemed certain to undermine last week’s claim that the epidemic was now ‘fully under control.’ The government has always maintained the risk to humans from foot-and-mouth is minimal and, with many tourist businesses on the brink of collapse, has urged people to return to rural areas . . . . Peter Ainsworth, culture spokesman for the opposition conservative party, said that if the case was confirmed it would be a ‘massive setback to the recovery of British tourism’ as some Americans and other visitors who mistakenly believe foot-and-mouth is a serious risk to human health would decide to stay away. ‘It’s a further massive dent to the image of British tourism at a time when we can ill afford it.’ Mr. Ainsworth said . . . . ‘This is incredibly rare.’ Said a Department of Health spokesman.’ ‘The symptoms are relatively mild and it should respond well to treatment and clear up quickly.’” (“Suspectd Human Foot-and-Mouth Case Hits Government Campaign” by Michael Mann and Cathy Newman; Financial Times; 4/24/2001; p. 9.)
11. More suspected human infections were reported by the Financial Times the following day. “Two more suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease being transmitted to humans were being investigated by the Department of Health yesterday as the government’s handling of the crisis was strongly criticized by leading independent scientists. Results from the first suspected case, involving a slaughterman in Cumbria, North-West England, are due shortly. Officials said the circumstances in which he may have caught the infection were highly unusual and proved there was no cause for concern. The man was moving a decomposing carcass when it exploded.” (“Livestock Disease Suspected in More Humans” by John Mason Cathy Newman and Michael Mann; Financial Times; 4/25/2001; p. 9.) One of the possibilities to be investigated is that the strain of foot-and-mouth may have been genetically altered to affect humans.
12. The remainder of the broadcast deals with mad-cow disease and its human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Mad cow disease is believed to result from nervous system tissue from scrapie-infected sheep being fed to cows. Scrapie, in turn has also been studied by elements associated with the creation of biological weapons, including the National Cancer Institute.
13. “Alternatively, ‘slow’ viruses were of the greatest interest to WHO, CDC, NIH, and NCI scientists between 1968 and 1974. The reasons for this were not as obvious. The WHO Chronicle reported: ‘Recent interest in the slow viruses, in particular those causing chronic degenerative disease of the nervous system—the CHINA (chronic infectious neuropathic agents) viruses—has come from painstaking work with visna and scrapie, degenerative diseases of the central nervous system of sheep. . . . CHINA viruses are distinguished by the languishing character of the infection process they initiate. The incubation period in the host may be months or years, and the disease itself may progress laggardly towards an irreversible deterioration of the victim. . . . The resistance of the scrapie agent to heat, ether, formalin, and other enzymatic and chemical agents, as well as its very small particle size, poses the question whether it is a conventional virus, an incomplete virus, or some other agent. . . . the findings of different [research] groups are at variance and in several instances are totally inexplicable within our present concept of infectious agents.’” (Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola—Nature, Accident or Intentional?; by Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz; Copyright 1996 [HC] by Tetrahedron Inc.; ISBN 0–923550-12–7; pp. 16–17.)
14. In determining whether mad cow could be the result of biological warfare, it is interesting to note that genetic differences may account for the epidemiological characteristics of the disease in Britain. This suggests at least the possibility of genetic engineering in connection with the disease. “Scientists have confirmed that cases of the human form of mad cow disease in the North are running at double the rate in the South. . . . The researchers found it was twice as common in the North of England and Scotland, but were at a loss to explain the difference after finding no clear link with regional differences in eating habits. . . .’We also need to keep an open mind about other factors unrelated to diet. . . . these could include the genetic background of victims. All those who developed the disease had a specific genetic make-up and it could be that people in the North are more genetically susceptible than in other places.’” (“Puzzled Scientists Try to Explain Regional Variation in Figures” by Mike Waites; Yorkshire Post; 3/30/2001.)
15. The broadcast concludes with examination of a hypothetical explanation for the outbreak of mad-cow disease. Investigators in New Zealand blame the outbreak in Britain on an African antelope imported into a game park in the mid-1970’s. “An African antelope imported for a British game park may have triggered the ‘mad-cow’ disease that has devastated beef herds in Britain, New Zealand researchers believe. Scientists from Massey University led by epidemiologist Roger Morris, are preparing to publish scientific work underpinning the theory, Professor Morris said. The team investigated 35 theories of the cause of the epidemic. If true, the antelope theory would supplant a widely held belief that bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, originated in sheep infected with a similar disease, scrapie, which were ground up for animal feed. Scientific papers to be published later this year by Mr. Morris and the team will canvass the likelihood that a form of BSE occurs in wild antelope, and spread into British cattle when an infected animal from a wildlife park was rendered into meat and bone meal.” (“’Mad-Cow’ Disease Linked to Antelope Researchers Say” [AP]; Wall Street Journal; 4/23/2001; p. B4A.) Mr. Emory notes that AIDS has come to be blamed (falsely) on infestation from Africa. In light of the research into scrapie conducted by institutions connected to biological warfare development, one wonders if a similar scapegoating of the “dark continent” for the genesis of mad-cow might be under way.
Looking Back from 1984
The discovery of the first case in mad cow in the US since 2006 is prompting the expected round of assurances to beef/dairy consumers that this was an anomalous event and there’s really nothing to be worried about. After all, this is the first case found in 6 years. What isn’t mentioned quite as often is that the cow was exhibiting no symptoms and was found through a random screening. But then, the FDA and industry argues, the fact that it was found through a random screen is a sign of the effectiveness of safety procedures. After all, there hasn’t been a case since 2006. What’s mentioned even less is that only 40,000 cows are randomly screened for mad cow each year. This is in a country with ~35 million cattle slaughtered annually. So what we’ve learned is that ~0.1% of the cattle are screen for a deadly, but presumably very rare, disease that both the cattle and humans can harbor asymptomatically for decades. And when symptoms do arise, they might be mistaken for Alzheimers. The article below also indicates that experst don’t know what the actual prevalence of spontaneous madcow disease is in cattle, shich would be a useful bit of info for determining an adequate screening regime.So let’s hope a 0.1% screening rate is enough and that’s why this was the first case seen since 2006 because the other possibilities are rather, ummm, unappetizing:
The USDA has an update on the recent case of mad cow in California. Now it sounds like the cow was lame and unable to walk, contradicting earlier reports that the cow was asymptomatic. It also sounds like to cow was a 10 year old dairy cow. Or maybe 5 years old. There’s apparently still some confusion:
So cows older then 2 1/2 years are considered at risk for developing mad cow, and the mad cow in question is either 5 or 10 years old. That’s a little unsettling since it raises the possibility that the cow had been infected for number of years before the symptoms started showing up. Well, at least we’re being assured that there was no human health risk since it was a dairy cow that’s not meant to enter the meat supply. It sure is a good thing that mad cow can’t be spread in milk:
@Pterrafractyl: Unfortunate stuff.
Sad thing is, we could have cured these diseases already if the medical establishment wasn’t so full of incompetent bums and money-grubbing crooks.
@Steven L.: “Scary” barely begins to describe the potentional for the kinds of prion-related calamities the US is flirting with in order to save a few cents on the cost of beef. It could be like Zombieland in slow motion. The possibility of infectious prions spreading in via dairy products is particularly disturbing since a cow could be spreading that stuff asymptomatically for years. I can’t fault the entire medical establishment for our mad cow policies, especially when it comes to regulatory policies. There are surely some bad actors in the research community but the doctors and scientists aren’t really the ones with the final say on these kinds matters. The nature of the risk is one of low-probabilities and low-precedent. Low probality, low precedent problems are, by their very nature, really tough calls especially when there are potentially disasterous consequences. And that’s before all the amoral outside interests get involved. A sober scientific appraisal of the risks at hand just won’t happen when it’s industry-approved political appointees making the final call using industry-derived voluntarily submitted data. And this is not to say that there’s compelling evidence of some sort of existing mad cow epedemic. The problem is that what little data the public has about the mad cow screening policy suggests that the screening regime itself can’t gather the data required to catch an emerging prion problem in the food supply if that low probability event should takes place. It’s like the previous testing into the risk of mad cow concluded “there isn’t much of it, so we don’t have to worry about it”. That’s like sampling people for the flu in the middle of July and assuming it will be like that all year around. Infectious agents don’t behave like this. If a prion disease spontaneously pops up in one in a million humans and at a similar rate in cattle (that’s what the data suggests), how in the hell can we know if testing 40,000 cattle of in the 30–40 million raised each year is really capable of catching an outbreak in time. Especially when you’re targeting only lame/older cattle and systematically can’t catch an outbreak that isn’t in old or lame cattle. For an infectious disease that can be asymptomatic for years that’s a serious problem. Especially when we don’t really understand all the different ways it spreads.
And increasingly technology is going to shift these kinds of low probability risks in highly unpredictable ways. Events like BP’s Gulf spill and the Fukushima meltdown were both low probability events and the lack of preparation in both cases was justified, in part, by the extremely low probabilities assigned to the sequence of events that led to the catastrophes. They both happened and changed the world irreversibly. Those probabilities of a depp ocean well blow out or multiple full nuclear meltdowns were probably
riggedoptimistically set by their industries as improbably low. I’d be pretty shocked if the same wasn’t true for the beef and dairy industry. As more and more technology gets implemented in ways that “might” lead to catastrophe, it looks like more and more irreversible catastrophes are going to take place because humanity just cannot seem to resist engaging in stupid optimism whenever it’s profitable. Plus, these are really hard scenarios to preduct accurately. It’s another systemic meta-problem we have yet to address. In an age of cloned, genetically modified cows what if the cow clones of the future have an undetected higher suspectibility to spontaneous prion disease? Do we have enough info to know if that’s happening? Can the current testing regime pick up the kind of dubtle shifts in genetic predisposition of an upcoming generation of cattle when the testing rate is at 0.1% and targetted at old and lame cattle. Who knows because it looks like the one screening in 2004 of 759,000 cattle to establish a baseline “prevalence” of the disease sponaneously appearing is the one and only estimate the USDA will allow to happen. Because after that, they drastically cut back on testing with only more cuts to follow. The US basically took one big sample in 2004 and that’s it. So if that 2004 sampling led to a significant understimation of the natural prevalence of mad cow OR the underlying conditions change in the future (e.g. different strains of mad cow emerging, business practices gone awry, bioterror, etc) a MAJOR assumption in what constitutes a “safe” testing regime might be skewed in ways that set the screening system up to fail. Bad stats really can kill.Like with Fukushima and the BP spill we’re squarely in low probability/high impact territory with mad cow and that doesn’t bode well given humanity’s track record. For instance, check out this article from 2007. It’s about some researchers that developed a mad cow-free cow by removing a gene involved with the production of prions. Apparently cows don’t need them to live (prions are naturally produced by the body but apparently not necessary to live). It’s an interesting article that shows the potential for developing a cure for prion diseases, but it also raises a couple of questions. First, there’s an estimate in the article that if all 42 million cattle in the US were tested for mad cow, maybe 4–7 cases would be found at most. That was what the experts were saying. So 0.00001% of the cows in the US were assumed to be infected as of 2007. I’d like to see the margin of error on that stat. Considering that three cases of mad cow had been detected in the US (starting in 2003) from what sounds like maybe a couple million tested at most (at a rate of 0.1% after the initial 1% screen), it sort of begs the question of just how reliable that estimate is that there were only 4–7 infected cows in the entire US at most? Is that supposed to be a conservative estimate? What would a reasonably optimistic estimate have been, one infected cow in the whole US at the most? Was there a super thorough testing regime that took place to get a decent baseline estimate and how useful is that estimate as a future predictor? (the articles below indicate “no”) Are we really risking loading up the population with low but still unacceptable levels of prions year after year based on these kinds of assumptions? Yes:
But what’s even worse is that the mad cow testing regime was actively cut by 90% back in April 2007, three months after the above article was published and two months after Canada had it’s 9th case of mad cow. That 9th case of Canadian mad cow also came one month after the US lifted its ban on the importation of aged cattle from Canada to allow US ranchers access to cheaper Canadian cattle. The justification for cutting back the US screenings by 90%? The low perceived risk and burdonsome costs:
Did you catch the logical fun they employed in their decision to cut back testing by 90%? We were assured that testing could be ramped up quickly if an emergency was detected so don’t worry that, by default, the screening is set up miss most cases. After all, it’s rare so there aren’t many cases to catch. In other words, it’s a screening system designed to miss anything other than a large uptick in mad cow cases. And in other other words, the beef industry is comfortable with undetected low levels of mad cow infections...they’re just planning on stepping in if it gets past some threshhold. Sounds safe real safe, doesn’t it? That approach might work for the flu but mad cow ain’t the flu. If you REALLY wanted to track an uptick in something like mad cow, the LOWER your assumed baseline prevalence of mad cow the HIGHER the number of cows (or whatever) you’d have to test. Unless you just don’t mind low levels of mad cow going undetected. And when the low probability event (a mad cow infection), is also an infectious low probability event AND the infection can spread silently for years between cows (and to humans potentially), the assumption of sustained low level infections in our cattle supply is the exactly that kind of situation that turns an undetected mad cow outbreak to an “when” not “if” scenario. As long as the mad cow is NOT manifesting as a slowly incubating condition in young cattle (beef or dairy) the screening regime can probably catch a number of cases that emerge in the lame/downer and elderly cattle (when the original source of contamination is hardest to determine due to the passage of time). But if there’s an emerging problem in young calves — a slow acting problem that doesn’t result in a bunch of lame calves that can be identified — the proposed testing regimes that focuses on older and lame cattle will remain blind to chronic low level prion infection in the younger cattle. At least that’s how it sounds in the articles. I could easily be wrong on this, but the way the news reports characterizes our screening regime there is a huge blind spot for prion infections in young cattle. It’s supposed to not be able to develop in them because they haven’t lived long enough for the prions to spread, but that’s assuming prions behave the same in the future as they have in the past. And in MoJo article below, this latest case in the old dairy cow appears to be an extra virulent form. Plus, the practice of feeding blood products to calves is still going on, allowing transmission to young calves. Because low level infections would required a greater sensivity to detect, there’s going to be a higher number of tests required to pick up a low uptick in prions. That’s the opposite of how things appear to be set up, with healthy look young cattle largely ignored from screening now that things have been cut back 90%, so that’s kind of a big deal IF that “low probability” event of a wide spread infection takes place amongst the young cattle and the mad cow screening regime can’t pick it up.
And that 90% screening reduction in 2007 is assuming that the detection rate of 2 cows in 759,000 samples tested from 2003–2007 is truly representative of the prevalence and that regulations designed to keep that rate down will be followed by the industry going forward indefinitely. But as this article from Febuary 2007 indicates, the ramped up phase of the initial mass screening in 2004 (following the initial mad cow case in 2003) was voluntary. That sure sounds like the industry has a “choice” as to whether or not they submit lame/downer cattle for testing, a statistical no-no when the profit motive and corporate reputations are involved. And it’s an exceptionally big deal when you’re talking talking about measuring a very low probability event. You can’t miss those downer cattle companies might want to hide when you’re looking for a supposed one in a million event. In May of 2005 there was a proposed mandatory testing regime that was to start by 2009, but in April of 2006 the testing regime was significantly scaled back due to estimates that the prevalence of mad cow as very low (and this was based on the voluntary testing that started in 2004). This was also one month after the third case of mad cow was found in Alabama. And in November 2006, the USDA decided to make the planned 2009 testing regime voluntary. So keep in mind that while there is much touting of the fact that this latest case in CA is the first case found in six years, that might have something to do with the fact that testing was cut back by 90% five years ago:
So not only was the initial sampling of the rate of infection in 2004 a voluntary sampling (which raises serious concerns about how representative that rate of 2 in 759,000 cattle really is), but ranchers were/are still potentially feeding calves blood products and plancenta which is known to spread the disease from mother to calf. AND elderly cows from Canada, which has an even bigger recorded mad cow problem, were now made available for import.
And, to bring it back around to the latest case of mad cow, now we know that an infected cow was producing milk for who knows how many years in California. On top of the obvious concern of that infected cow spreading the prions to who knows how many differet calves via the feeding of cattle blood formula, just how confident can we really be that prions can’t be spread in milk. As one of the above articles points out, experiments suggest just one bad prion can potentially ruin a brain so the spread of bad prions, even at low levels, is a very relevant question. Today’s prions might not be as virulent as tomorrow’s strains. But we’re assured that everyone is safe because you can’t catch mad cow from milk. Why do we know that you can’t catch it? Because we haven’t observed it happening yet. That’s why. Somehow absence of evidence is evidence of future absence when it comes to low probability unprecedented future events. Even when being wrong about the risks might lead to Zombieland:
And with alarming history and a new case of mad cow at hand, will there at least be a review of our screening policies and maybe an attempt to update them? And will the new mad cow discovery at least prompt the promised “ramped up” higher rate of testing that can take place if a heightened risk is found? Of course not:
Don’t forget that this whole dynamic is much likelier and more destructive during a period of concentrated economic power and the capture of very structure of the economy through cartels and a bought and paid for regulatory scheme. Fascists bring government on the cheap. That’s what “small government” ends up being under stupid political dyanimics of any sort because the same incompetence that creates the bloat cuts the fat. The gutting of mad cow testing because of cost is just insane given the consequences of a mess up. Bad policy and bad private sector behavior in concert is often super profitable but it can end up going awry and requiring a bailout. And mad cows get biological bailouts. Those are the worst.
Madness: It’s what for dinner.
@Pterrafractyl: While I still doubt a Mad Cow prion true epidemic(as in tens of millions of deaths a la Spanish Flu) is even remotely close to likely by any means, this information is indeed worrisome because there very well could be tens of thousands of people who could end up being sickened by this and have symptoms not show up until a few decades afterwards, and then people wonder why so many people are dying of such similar causes.
I realize that there are still some decent people in the medical establishment and hopefully they can start gaining the upper hand soon. =(
Although, to be honest with you, I didn’t believe BP when they claimed that the Gulf incident was a ‘low probability’ event. Frankly, I think they knew it was the exact opposite......same may have gone for Fukushima as well.
@Steven L.: I’d agree that a massive undetected mad cow outbreak highly unlikely to randomly emerge. And it’s net not “likely” over, say, a ten year time frame. But if we keep up these dangerous industry practices and maintain the conditions necessary for the highly unlikely to actually happen, it will eventually happen. Just give it enough time. Think of that story from last year about the scientists that created an airborne version of bird flu. The random steps required to go from the existing regular bird flu strains to an airborne variety were viewed as improbable events. Yes, eventually it would happen because of sheer number of sick bird farmed around the world, but the research community hadn’t expected these researchers to make the much feared airborne strain so easily. All they had to do was keep passing mutated strain from one animal to the next and in less than 10 iterations that had their airborne strain and voila, nature defied our odds makers. Now, the mutation rates of a virus aren’t the same as the mutation rates in cows. But think about unknowns like the practice of routinely genetically modifying and mass cloning cattle or bioterror. The bioterror potential is especially troublesome because it’s so obvious to the world that there are these large systemic blind spots in the screening. It’s like walking around with a “kick me and then poison-me” sign taped to your back. You’re just asking for it. Because of unknown factors like these I would put the possibility of a serious outbreak some time over the next 50 years as more than remote. It’s still unlikely overall, but I can’t say I’d be particularly surprised at this point if we discovered one day that, say, 25% of people Alzheimers patients were also suffering from low-level mad cow-complications. It also wouldn’t be surprising if that never happened. That’s how I’d characterize my sense of odds of a serious future mad cow at this point: it’s not probable but still reasonable possible given what we now.
Most of the ways we could potentially destroys ourselves are individually unlikely. It’s the sheer number of graveyards that we’re whistling past these days that’s going to seal our doom.
The supposed advantages to the public of cartel operations are uniformity of production quality, economies of scale and streamlined regulation. None of these ever quite materialize. Instead we get price collusion, lower quality, corruption of the entire chain of production and an industry large enough to control its own legislative agenda. That’s happened with coffee, bananas, sugar, oil, steel, tennis shoes and baby rattles over a century. Many small suppliers of a commodity is what makes for an equitable market. Full employment, many medium wealthy people and no billonaires is the result of such a market. Limits to personal net worth and a global end to secret banking are a first step. OWS needs that as a definite agenda. Then we would see the real battle lines drawn.
@Pterrafractyl: And I very much agree with you. It is far better, no, INFINITELY better, in this case, to be extra-cautious and never have a single outbreak, than to be totally careless and for tens of thousands to start dropping dead. And unfortunately, if carelessness continues, then a significant outbreak is indeed possible within half a century or so.
I do hope things will get better, but we must continue to remain as vigilant as possible if that is to be achieved.
@Dwight: That is definitely something I can agree with.