- Although beef brains, guts, eyes and spinal cords are
available to consumers as "variety meats," they are labeled as
such and therefore represent only a small fraction of the American public's
exposure to these organs. People are more likely to consume potentially
infectious tissues such as spinal cord disguised within all-American favorites,
like hot dogs and hamburgers...
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- In 1994, meat processors began using a new technology,
called advanced meat recovery (AMR), to help "increase yields and
profitability"...
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- Prior to 1994, only cattle skeletal muscle, tongue, diaphragm,
heart, and esophagus could be labeled as beef. But by the end of that year,
the USDA had already amended the definition of "meat" to include
the product of advanced meat recovery machinery. This meant that... AMR
meat was considered 100% beef and could be labeled as such...
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- Today, the majority of cattle are now processed using
AMR... AMR beef typically ends up as a hidden ingredient in hamburgers,
hot dogs, sausages, and beef jerky, as well as part of ground beef in meatballs,
pizza toppings and taco fillings. The danger, once again, is that if the
spinal cord isn't removed before entering one of these machines, it is
bound to be incorporated into the meat that is produced.
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- Companies are supposed to remove the animals' brains
and spinal cords before processing the carcasses through the AMR machinery,
but getting out all of the spinal cord can be challenging. "It requires
special tools and skills," says Glenn Schmidt, a meat scientist at
Colorado State University. "The workers have to reach down to the
neck region of the carcass to remove the spinal cord by scraping or suction,
and sometimes they don't get all of it."
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- In 1997, the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen
obtained USDA inspection records through the Freedom of Information Act
showing that a significant percentage of AMR samples were turning up contaminated
with central nervous system (CNS) tissue (brain or spinal cord). Instead
of simply requiring that spinal columns be removed from carcasses before
being placed in advanced meat recovery systems, the USDA responded by merely
directing its inspectors to continue testing samples of AMR meat for the
presence of central nervous tissue.
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- Despite their promise to initiate testing, the USDA took
fewer than 60 samples over the next 3 years, yet still found spinal cord
in a number of them. The first major study of AMR meat was published in
2001. Colorado State University researchers found that "well over
50%" of the samples of AMR beef from neck bones were contaminated
with CNS tissue. Then they went to 7 major suppliers of large fast food
chains across the country to sample hamburger patties. Six out of seven
suppliers had detectable CNS tissue in their burgers.
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- The USDA again responded only with promises to do more
testing. The results of the USDA's tests were made public in 2002. Eighty-eight
percent of the meat processors (30 out of 34) were producing AMR beef which
contained unacceptable nervous tissue, and almost all of the samples (96.5%)
contained bone marrow, which may also be infectious...
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- [A]bout 50 percent of AMR meat comes from the neck bones
and spine which contain the spinal cord...
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- [E]ven if Americans just stick to steak, they may not
be shielded from risk. The "T" in a T-bone steak is a vertebra
from the animal's spinal column, and as such may contain a section of the
actual spinal cord. Other potentially contaminated cuts include porterhouse,
standing rib roast, prime rib with bone, bone-in rib steak, and (if they
contain bone) chuck blade roast and loin. These cuts may include spinal
cord tissue and/or so-called dorsal root ganglia, swellings of nerve roots
coming into the meat from the spinal cord which have been proven to be
infectious as well...
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- Even boneless cuts may not be risk-free, though. In the
slaughterhouse, the bovine carcass is typically split in half down the
middle with a band saw, sawing right through the spinal column. This has
been shown to aerosolize the spinal cord and contaminate the surrounding
meat. A study in Europe found contamination with spinal cord material on
100% of the split carcasses examined... The World Health Organization has
pointed out that American beef can be contaminated with brain and spinal
cord tissue in another way as well.
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- Except for Islamic halal and Jewish kosher slaughter
(which involve slitting the cow's throat while the animal is still conscious),
cattle slaughtered in the United States are first stunned unconscious with
an impact to the head before being bled to death. Medical science has known
for over 60 years that people suffering head trauma can end up with bits
of brain embolized into their bloodstream; so Texas A&M researchers
wondered if fragments of brain could be found within the bodies of cattle
stunned for slaughter. They checked and reportedly exclaimed, "Oh,
boy did we find it." They even found a 14 cm piece of brain in one
cow's lung. They concluded, "It is likely that prion proteins are
found throughout the bodies of animals stunned for slaughter."
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- There are different types of stunning devices, however,
which likely have different levels of risk associated with them. The Texas
A&M study was published in 1996 using the prevailing method at the
time, pneumatic-powered air injection stunning...
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- Although this method of stunning has been used in the
United States for over 20 years, the meat industry, to their credit, has
been phasing out these particularly risky air injection-type stunners...
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- The stunning devices that remain in widespread use drive
similar bolts through the skull of the animal, but without air injection.
Operators then may or may not pith the animals by sticking a rod into the
stun hole to further agitate the deeper brain structures to reduce or eliminate
reflex kicking during shackling of the hind limbs. Even without pithing,
which has been shown to be risky, these stunners currently in use in the
U.S. today may still force brain into the bloodstream of some of these
animals.
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- In one experiment, for example, researchers applied a
marker onto the stunner bolt. The marker was later detected within the
muscle meat of the stunned animal. They conclude: "This study demonstrates
that material present in... the CNS [central nervous system] of cattle
during commercial captive bolt stunning may become widely dispersed across
the many animate and inanimate elements of the slaughter-dressing environment
and within derived carcasses including meat entering the human food chain."
Even non-penetrative "mushroom-headed" stunners which just rely
on concussive force to the skull to render the animal unconscious may not
be risk free. People in automobile accidents with non-invasive head trauma
can still end up with brain embolization, and these bolts move at over
200 miles per hour. The researchers at Texas A&M conclude, "Reason
dictates that any method of stunning to the head will result in the likelihood
of brain emboli in the lungs or, indeed, other parts of the body."
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- And, finally, even if consumers of American beef just
stick to boneless cuts from ritually slaughtered animals who just happen
to have had their spinal columns safely removed, the muscle meat itself
may be infected with prions. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association
continues to assure consumers that beef is safe because the deadly prions
aren't found in muscle meat. Even putting aside contamination issues, it
seems they are simply behind the times. In 2002, Stanley Prusiner, the
Nobel laureate who discovered prions, proved in mice, at least, that muscle
cells themselves were capable of forming prions. He describes the levels
of prions in muscle as "quite high," and describes the studies
relied upon by the Cattlemen's Association as "extraordinarily inadequate."
Follow-up studies in Germany published May, 2003 confirm Prusiner's findings,
showing that an animal who are orally infected may indeed end up with prions
contaminating muscles throughout their body.
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- The entire article, which includes references, is found
here: http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm
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