Mad Cow in Blood & Milk

An editorial in today's British Medical Journal
(Jan. 17, 04, 328:118-119) calls for an urgent action
to prevent the spread of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (vCJD), the human form of mad cow disease--
through blood transfusions.

In December of 2003, England's Secretary of Health
announced that a case of Mad Cow Disease had been
passed from a human blood donor to a human blood
recipient.

What took England so long to announce this truth?
The blood donation was made in 1996. It took three
years for the recipient to become ill, and die.

In the United States, it is illegal to donate blood
if an individual has visited or lived in England for
a period greater than one month.

Each day, a typical dairy cow filters 10,000 quarts of
blood through her udder. The average quart of milk sold
in America in 2003 contained 322 million dead white
blood cells.

The infectious particle causing Cows to become "mad"
and human brains to turn into sponges, is called a
Prion. Prions cannot be destroyed by pasteurization.
Laboratory tests have demonstrated that Prions
survive when exposed to temperatures in excess
of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Doesn't it stand to reason that if Mad Cow Disease
can be passed from human to human through blood, then
it can also be passed from cow to human in blood?
And, if milk is actually white blood, should we
continue to drink body fluids from diseased animals?

The average dairy cow in America produces 24 quarts
of milk each day. That's 8,760 quarts per year. That's
nearly three trillion blood cells. What plague
potential!

The one dairy cow infected with Mad Cow Disease from a
Washington herd, whose milk was pooled with 3,000
others from that same herd, had the potential to
infect every American thousands of times over. Her "pooled"
milk was distributed on the West Coast. Her infected milk
was made into cheese and butter and ice cream, and shipped
from the West Coast to the East Coast, and to all points
in between.

What can you do?
Wait.
Hope for the best.
In 20 years (the incubation period) you will know
whether you have been infected.

On Monday of this week, USDA quietly declared a State
of Emergency in the State of Washington by publishing
notice in the Congressional Record (01/12/04). As of
today, six hundred cows have been euthanized. Tests
of their brains are ongoing. Many herds have been
quarantined.

If and when you or a relative or friend is diagnosed
with vCJD, loved ones will remark, "Nobody warned me."
Sure they did.
You just were not listening.
You continued to eat the pizza.
You continued to slurp the ice cream.
Many gourmets describe the experience of eating these
foods as "a taste to die for."

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com