Mad Cow Facts

Fox News
By Steven Milloy
October 5, 2006

Excerpt…

Farm Aid benefit concerts are supposed to be about raising money to help family farmers. Last week’s Farm Aid event, however, seems to have had more to do with benefiting the multibillion dollar organic milk industry – at the expense of those same family farmers and the environment.

This year’s Farm Aid concert was held on Sep. 30 in Camden, N.J. The major sponsors included Silk Soymilk and Horizon Organic – brands owned by Dean Foods, the largest U.S. dairy company with more than $10 billion in annual revenues; Whole Foods Markets – the $5.4 billion organic foods supermarket chain and retailer of Dean Foods’ products; and the Organic Trade Association, the industry lobby whose members include the aforementioned Silk, Horizon and Whole Foods.

Farm Aid’s “support family farmers” theme appears limited to small, struggling and organic farms. The organizers and spokespeople generally espouse a negative view of larger, technologically sophisticated and more profitable conventional farms.

Another Farm Aid theme is the saving the environment. One sponsor’s media release describes how it bought wind energy credits to offset all the energy used to put on the show and by the show-goers driving from miles around. A third Farm Aid theme is educating the public about agriculture.

But in light of Farm Aid’s sponsorship by the organic food industry — notably the organic milk industry — all three themes are bitterly ironic for small farmers.

Support family farmers? Recent news stories report that Dean Foods’ milk plants in the Northeast will stop accepting milk from farmers who choose to supplement their cows with rbST — a synthetic version of a naturally occurring hormone in cows. Farmers use rbST to increase their farms’ milk production with fewer cows and at lower cost.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other international regulatory bodies have checked and double-checked to make sure that rbST is safe for cows and that the cow’s milk is safe for humans. Not only is rbST safe, but no difference can be detected in milk from supplemented- versus unsupplemented-cows.

Dean Foods controls most of the milk market in the Northeast, so the company can dictate how farmers produce milk. Since rbST enables farmers to produce more milk with fewer cows, the loss of this technology will very likely cost farmers far more than whatever “aid” they will get from this year’s Farm Aid.

The organic food sponsors also fall short on the environment theme.

Whether it’s rbST, crop protection products for growing feed for dairy cows or pharmaceutical products that keep cows healthy, dairy farmers produce more milk today than they did 50 years ago and they do it with about 60 percent fewer cows — gains made possible through modern advances in agricultural technologies.

If organic food companies want to roll back the clock on modern technology, we’re going to need a lot more cows… Without pesticides, more land must be used to grow more crops to produce needed feed. For those worried about global warming, more cows means greater production of methane, a major greenhouse gas. There’s also the added manure from more cows which environmentalists blame for polluting surface and groundwater.

Suddenly, organic doesn’t sound so eco-friendly after all.

Finally, there is Farm Aid’s effort to teach the public about agriculture. Organic marketers imply and state that their products are healthier. But this is simply not true.

No scientific study shows that organic foods are safer, healthier or more nutritious than conventional foods. The “organic” label only means that the products were raised inefficiently without benefit of several modern technologies.

Milk — whether organic, conventional or conventional produced without use of rbST — is all the same stuff. Marketing and labels that imply otherwise hardly educate the public. Mostly, they line the pockets of the companies selling them at a premium — as much as twice the price of conventional milk.

Topping all this off is the Farm Aid caricature of the proper farmer as “small scale.” Farm Aid sponsor Horizon is the biggest organic milk brand in the U.S. and buys much of its milk from large farms that milk thousands of cows. Horizon’s large-scale dairy farming has riled the likes of the organic food fundamentalists at the Cornucopia Institute, which gave Horizon a one-cow rating (out of five possible) and labeled the company as “ethically-challenged.”

This, of course, wasn’t mentioned at Farm Aid.

If the Farm Aid folks really wanted to help farmers, they would have the same standards and expectations for food production as they do for the production of other consumer and industrial goods — safety, efficiency, affordability and reduced environmental impact. A more appropriate Farm Aid message might be: “If you want to help a farmer, help the environment and save some money, don’t buy organic milk.”

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

By Kylene Kiang
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 10, 2006

Excerpt…

Washington — At the local supermarket, the organic fruit and vegetable display is a frequent stop for health-conscious consumers. But turn to the next aisle and shoppers are likely to find a different array of “natural” and “organic” foods.

All-natural potato chips. Organic breakfast burritos. On the frozen-food aisle, a shopper can unearth multiple varieties of organic three-cheese lasagna.

Some organic farmers and activists say that in the United States the organic label, once the symbol of foods produced by environmentally friendly means, has with time been cheapened into a gimmicky marketing tool.

And as mainstream supermarket chains increase their clutch on the lucrative organic industry, the same critics contend that big business is developing a stranglehold on efforts to tighten national organic standards and regulations. Big businesses entering the growing market counter that simply by doing so, they are benefiting both the environment and consumers.

By Department of Agriculture standards, the “USDA organic” seal means that at least 95 percent of the ingredients in the product are farmed without using chemicals, hormones, pesticides or any method regarded as harmful to the environment.

Organic or sustainable farming techniques can include using ducks and insects for pest and weed control, water conservation and natural methods of soil replenishment. In the past, supporting organic farming also meant favoring locally grown food over mass-produced varieties that are often grown using greater quantities of fossil fuels for production and transport.

On store shelves, the line between organic and mass-produced has blurred. Tostitos now offers organic tortilla chip selections. Frito-Lay also has introduced a brand of “natural” Doritos.

“It is sort of a marketing gimmick,” said registered dietitian Cindy Moore, director of nutrition therapy at the Cleveland Clinic. She added that not all organic foods are equal. “If you have a product with limited nutrients, making them with organic products isn’t going to make it better.”

USDA spokeswoman Joan Shaffer said the organic label is a “marketing program” that only specifies how the food was processed and has no indication of food safety or nutrition….

Spawned in 1970s

The organic movement gained attention in the 1970s when the government banned the pesticide DDT. Spawned in response to the often-toxic practices of mass agriculture, the movement was seen as an eccentricity of the Earth-loving hippie set. Organic foods were not simply about good eating, but doing good for the environment and promoting a healthier, more sustainable place in which to live.

Consumers now, however, tend to equate “organic” with “healthy.” But that comparison is often not accurate, said Brad Stufflebeam, an organic farmer based in Brenham, Texas, who noted the explosion of processed foods on supermarket shelves with “organic” labels.

“Just because it’s organic cereal with organic sugar doesn’t make it healthy,” Stufflebeam said.

On food packaging, “natural” has no relation to organic and only implies that the product contains no artificial ingredients or artificial food coloring, Moore said. ” ‘Natural’ has nothing to do with how the food was grown, handled or processed.”

(more…)

Canadian Food Inspection Agency
August 23, 2006

Excerpt…

OTTAWA, August 23, 2006 - Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was today confirmed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in a mature beef cow from Alberta. No part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems.

Preliminary information provided by the owner and an examination conducted by a private veterinarian estimate the animal’s age was between eight and ten years of age. Based on this range, exposure to the BSE agent likely occurred either before the feed ban’s introduction or during its early implementation. The estimated age of this animal is consistent with those of previous Canadian cases and exposure to a very low level of BSE infectivity.

A CFIA investigation is underway to locate the positive animal’s birth farm. This information, if determined, will serve to definitively verify the animal’s age as well as help identify herdmates of interest and potential sources of contaminated feed. As has been done previously, the CFIA will conduct a complete epidemiological review of this case, the results of which will be made public….

SwissInfo.org
August 16, 2006

Excerpt…

The Federal Veterinary Office says it will reduce its BSE unit from 20 people to 12 by the end of 2006 and shift its focus to the entire food production chain.

The unit, which was created in 2001 to deal exclusively with mad cow disease, will in future concentrate on animal health and protection, humane production, food safety and hygiene.

The bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) unit’s budget will also be reduced by over a third, from SFr3.5 million ($2.8 million) to SFr2 million.

So far this year two cases of BSE have been reported; in 2005 the Swiss authorities reported three cases of the encephalopathy in animals that were infected in the mid-1990s.

The crisis over mad cow disease peaked in Switzerland in 1995 when 68 cases were reported across the country.

…This was banned in 1990 as one of the first measures implemented by the Swiss authorities…

It was only in 2004 that no traces of banned animal products were found in feed for livestock for the first time. In 2003 0.3 per cent of tests still revealed traces.

Model nation
 
In 1990 Switzerland became the third European country after Britain and Ireland to register cases of BSE in its cattle. The disease was first defined in Britain in November 1986. Some 83,000 cases have been detected there since then.

The human illness, Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), was recognised in 1996 and is thought to result from the consumption of BSE-infected meat. There have been no cases of vCJD reported in Switzerland.

In 2004, the United Nations praised Switzerland for its efforts to control mad cow disease, calling it a model for other nations.

The same year, Swiss experts were sent to the United States, following that country’s first confirmed case of BSE.

CONTEXT
 
The first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, was reported in Britain in 1986.

In 1990 Switzerland became the third European country after Britain and Ireland to register cases of BSE, which progressively destroys the brain and nervous system.

Switzerland quickly adopted measures to limit the spread of BSE: a complete ban on animal products in feed for livestock; the elimination of the herd where cases of BSE were confirmed, and the incineration of the carcasses of sick animals.

The human form of BSE, new Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) was discovered in 1996.
KEY FACTS
 
The first case of BSE discovered in Britain in 1986.
Disease appears in Swiss cows for first time in 1990.
Federal Veterinary Office introduces fast BSE test in 1999 to monitor cattle.
In 2001, the office slaps complete ban on meat and bone meal in feed for livestock.

The Washington Post
By Sally Squires
August 1, 2006

Excerpt…

If you’ve ever stood at the meat counter pondering whether to buy plain-old beef or to spring for the various niche varieties proliferating in food stores, you’re not alone.

“Consumers do not understand the difference between all-natural, grass-fed and organic beef,” notes Rick Machen, who grew up on a cattle ranch and is now a livestock specialist at Texas A&M University. “I don’t understand them myself, and I’m a university professor. It’s something that the industry needs to work on so that consumers fully appreciate and understand the differences between those products.”

…Nor are there even clear definitions. While a standard for certified organic beef was implemented by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2002, there is no government definition for free-range beef. USDA also doesn’t have a formal standard for certified Black Angus beef, though it enforces an industry definition that dictates hide color, neck size, degree of marbling, age and other features.

In May, the USDA proposed a standard for grass-fed beef — not necessarily the same as free-range beef — after a failed attempt in 2002. The deadline for public comments on that standard is Aug. 10. Under consideration: Cuts of beef labeled “grass fed” must come from steers that have eaten grass at least 99 percent of the time from weaning to the slaughterhouse.

That may sound healthier than standard beef, “but the way we produce beef right now is almost all grass-fed,” notes Jose Pena, an agricultural economist with Texas A&M University. “Eighty percent of calves are born in the spring and weaned in September.” After that, they graze on grass or mesquite during their roughly 20-to-30-month-long lives.

If the proposed USDA standard is finalized, “grass-fed” steers will keep grazing until they go to the slaughterhouse. The others, including many certified organic cattle, will likely spend their last couple of months eating corn, barley or other grain in a feedlot to add the final 250 to 400 pounds before slaughter, when they weigh about 1,200 pounds.

It’s this grain feeding “that gives steak the marbling and makes the fat white,” says Pena, a former beef rancher. Otherwise, the fat is “yellow and kind of funky-looking, and the beef has a grassy taste,” he says.

As for certified organic beef, it must come from animals that have not been treated with antibiotics or hormones. All their food, from mothers’ milk to grassy pastures and feedlot grain, must also be certified organic.

Organic beef is often touted as a safer bet for those concerned about mad cow disease. But neither organically raised livestock nor other steers in the United States are allowed to eat feed containing ground-up protein from other mammals — the practice that was linked to the spread of the illness in animals and has been banned by the USDA since 1997.

Where niche beef can sometimes have a slight nutritional edge is in the type of fat it contains, says Chris Kerth, an associate professor of animal sciences at Auburn University in Alabama. Grass-fed beef contains “anywhere from two to 10 times as much omega-3 fatty acids as regular beef,” Kerth notes….

Plus, grass-fed beef has a healthier ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. In the last century, Americans have shifted to more processed foods that contain far more omega-6s than omega-3s. Studies suggest that there could be health advantages to returning to a diet that has much more omega-3s.

Even so, “if increasing omega-3s is your goal,” notes Keecha Harris, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetics Association, there’s far more in a serving of salmon than in any kind of steak.

According to a recent review of the research conducted on grass-fed beef, other possible nutritional advantages include slightly increased levels of beta carotene, which is converted in the body to vitamin A. It also appears to have a little more vitamin E, and it seems to contain more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a type of healthy fat. There’s growing evidence that CLA may help reduce risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and may be linked with a lower percentage of body fat.

But what about taste? In two independent tests — one conducted by the University of California, the other by Auburn — two-thirds of consumers preferred standard beef to grass-fed.

Or as Texas A&M’s Machen puts it: “I prefer the grain-fed beef taste, which is just as safe and wholesome as the organic or grass-fed product, and it is significantly less expensive.”