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Vegan (alt.food.vegan) This newsgroup exists to share ideas and issues of concern among vegans. We are always happy to share our recipes- perhaps especially with omnivores who are simply curious- or even better, accomodating a vegan guest for a meal! |
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Subject: Docket #99P-0033/CP1 Loopholes in BSE Legislature
As a vegan I'm protected. What is so insidious about this disease the
long incubation period. There is no way they are isolated cases, they come from lots, fed the same feed. There are huge loopholes that should be closed. Subject: Docket #99P-0033/CP1 Now is the time to take action. The U.S. government has just investigated a third possible case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, in the United States. The first case was confirmed in late 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington State, and the second just this past June in a U.S.-born Texas cow. Scientists have concluded that exposure to the BSE agent causes a variant form of Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease (nvCJD) in humans. The common characteristics of mad cow disease and nvCJD are that they are both invariably fatal. To date, over 155 cases of nvCJD have been reported worldwide. Though the recent investigation revealed that the cow did not have BSE, this latest discovery less than two months from the Texas case raises serious concerns about the adequacy of FDA’s regulations to address the spread of mad cow disease and its ability to do its job – protect the safety of our food supply. Scientists have concluded that mad cow disease is spread through the use of contaminated animal feed. The FDA issued restrictions on animal feed in 1997 that the agency claims create a “firewall” against the spread of mad cow disease. In fact, this “firewall” is little more than a screen door. The FDA’s regulations are riddled with holes and animal feed remains a route by which the disease can be spread into the U.S. food supply. While FDA’s 1997 rule prohibits the feeding of ruminant (cattle, sheep, deer, goats) material to other ruminants, hundreds of millions of pounds of cattle blood and fat, and the meat, blood, fat and bone meal from pigs and chickens are legally fed to cattle every year. American cattle are also being fed a million tons a year of chicken litter and feces contaminated with the cattle meat and bone meal fed to those chickens. These are practices that can spread mad cow disease and are banned in countries like England and Japan. In 1999, the Center for Food Safety and others filed a legal petition for rulemaking with the FDA asking the agency to close these dangerous loopholes. While they solicited some comments on the issue in 2002, the agency has yet to provide a substantive answer to our petition and has refused to take the actions necessary to close the existing loopholes and protect public health. Even the General Accounting Office (the watchdog arm of Congress) issued a report in 2002 that found serious flaws in the FDA’s regulations. Take action now to support CFS’ legal petition and demand the FDA close the loopholes that put our public health - and the integrity of the agency – at risk. Send a letter to the following decision maker(s): FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford Below is the sample letter: Subject: Docket #99P-0033/CP1 Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here], The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and others filed petition number 99P-0033/CP1 in 1999 in response to dangerous loopholes in FDA's feed restrictions and regulations regarding mad cow disease in the United States. Now, nearly six years later and after investigating our third possible case of a BSE infected cow in the U.S., the FDA must take action to protect our public health and food supply. The recent announcement that this third cow did not have BSE is far from a relief, and instead raises serious concerns about the efficacy of FDA's regulations. The spread of mad cow disease in the United States is a serious threat that must be addressed in a meaningful way. We can not continue to sit on our hands and allow BSE to quietly make its way into American beef. I support CFS' petition to amend the current inadequate FDA regulations and a ban on the use of any and all mammalian or avian proteins in the feed of animals that may enter the human food supply. FDA should close the existing loopholes by taking immediate action on the following: 1. Ban the use of blood and blood products in cattle feed. 2. Ban the use of poultry litter, including bedding, waste and spilled feed, as cattle feed. The use of such feed can allow materials not permitted for ruminants to be fed back to cattle as part of feed created from poultry litter. 3. Ban the use of plate waste in ruminant feed. Current regulations allow for inspected meat products that have been cooked and offered for human food and then further processed for feed, to be fed back to ruminants. 4. Ban the use of salvaged pet foods in ruminant feed. Pet food destined for the retail market can make its way back to the cattle feed market as distressed or salvaged pet foods. 5. Ban the use of possible "silent carriers" of mad cow like diseases, such as pigs and chickens, in cattle feed. 6. Ban the use of gelatin products and proteins from pigs and horses in cattle feed. |
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Beach Runner wrote:
> As a vegan I'm protected. You are *not* protected, moron. You're still at risk from a variety of factors including blood transfusion and other blood products (plasma, drugs or immunizations made from plasma, etc.), as well as from fertilizers made with bloodmeal, bonemeal, and so on. Did you know that many of your organic fertilizers are made from dead animal parts, dummy? http://gardenline.usask.ca/misc/common3.html http://tinyurl.com/afkvs Etc. |
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