In Reply to: Absolute ignorance and perpetuation on your BSE page posted by Chris Danek on July 01, 1996 at 01:24:35:
> I am writing in protest of the absolute ignorance and perpetuation of this on
> the web page at www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/madcow.html. The page strikes beef
> as deadly and dangerous, and strikes the government as a weak organiztion.
> Quoted:
> It is clear that whatever the government choose to tell the public or
> what reassurances they try to give, British beef is NOT safe to eat.Seems like a fair statement. The British Government had said repeatedly that
there was no possible risk from eating beef and then its on commitee of scientific
advisers stated that the most likely explaination for the new and unusal cases of
CJD was that a link DOES exist between eating BSE infect beef and the human CJD.> The diease can be commuted horizontally (by eating the diseased tissue -
> a common practice with farmers - feeding cows with other cows) WITHIN
> the species, but not via the bovine-human species barrier. Understand
> that the barrier between the cow's and the sheep (it's couterpart called
> scrapie) is very small, and that is most likely how the disease was
> transmitted in the first place.You are just repeating the claims of the British Government before SEAC
concluded that the most likely explaination was that BSE had crossed the
bovine-human species barrier. You are no more of an expert than anyone
on the SEAC and your opinion is no more or less valid than theirs.There are many theories being offered about the causes of BSE and the
nature of the disease and the possibilities of cross species infection.Seeing as beef is not required to sustain human good health, it seems
quite crazy and irresponsible to claim that beef is absolutely safe when
the facts are that the safety of beef is unknown. Such assurances (like
those given by the British Government) are simply perpetuation of dangerous
and ignorant missinformation.
None.