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St. Cloud State University
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Mad Cow myths dispelled
By Mike Lauterbach
Published:
Monday, October 14, 2002
Media Credit: Jason Risberg
Tom Taylor, a field organizer for the Organic Consumers Organization, spoke Thursday afternoon in Atwood Theater. The main topics Taylor addressed were the problems with genetically altered crops and cattle.
It was an unusual sight for Atwood’s little theater––a piglet squealing as it was castrated with scissors.
But the show, the first presentation at Thursday’s conference on Mad Cow and Chronic Wasting disease, wasn’t nearly over.
Before the presentation was finished, the crowd of about 30 was treated to photos of a chicken with an ear infection that covered the entire side of its head, a video of a worker slitting a cow’s throat while it kicked and tried to moo and, of course, more piglet footage. This time, workers swung runt piglets by their hind legs and slammed their heads into the concrete floor in a process called “thumping.”
The latter images were part of a video called “Meet your Meat.” The former was the fruit of a break-in (“rescue” if you ask him) by Freeman Wicklund, the first presenter at the conference.
Wicklund’s presentation touched on how he, along with a few other activists, entered a Crystal Farms factory farm in an act of civil disobedience. The group took away a few sick and injured chickens and dozens of photos.
Those photos made up a large part of Wicklund’s presentation, which centered on what he described as the cruel and unhealthy conditions at factory farms.
“I’m here to give the context for understanding (mad cow disease),” he said.
Kerri Roesner, a graduate student at SCSU and the conference organizer, said that both animal cruelty and mad cow disease have a common cause.
“Factory farms are trying to make as much money as they can and not considering animals or consumers,” Roesner said.
Michael Greger, a medical doctor from Boston and an expert on Chronic Wasting disease and Mad Cow disease, gave two presentations at the conference. He identified one cost-cutting measure as particularly problematic from a health standpoint.
“Animal waste (i.e. organs, brain tissue, etc.) from slaughterhouses is often added to feed as a protein source because of its low price,” Greger said. “And when a cow eats brain tissue from a cow infected with mad cow, that cow will contract the disease.”
According to Greger, cow cannibalism would never happen naturally, but the feeding of cows to cows, he said, makes an epidemic possible.
“It’s kind of like unsafe sex,” Greger said. “You’re not eating that cow, you’re eating every cow that that cow ate.”
And even though feeding cows to cows was made illegal after the European outbreak of Mad Cow, Greger said that enforcement is sketchy at best and that the law still allows cows to be fed to other cows in some instances.
“The possibility of epidemic is particularly worrisome because of the characteristics of mad cow disease and its human equivalent, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” Greger said. “Both are invariably fatal and can only be detected post-mortem.”
The USDA and CDC have never found any cases of either Mad Cow or new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the U.S, and a Harvard study commissioned by the USDA found that the U.S. is “highly resistant” to an outbreak of mad cow from foreign beef. The CDC, however, does acknowledge that there is “strong epidemiologic and laboratory evidence for a causal association between new variant CJD and BSE (Mad Cow disease).”
Greger finished by recommending the audience take steps to minimize risk, such as avoiding processed meat products. He also said that the USDA must test more animals to be sure that mad cow is not present in the U.S.
“No one knows what the risk is,” he said. “But by the time we know it may be too late.”
The audience, which was about an even mix of students and faculty, seemed to take his warnings to heart. The mood was somber, and Greger even drew a collective gasp with the results of one study.
Roesner said that she was pleased to be providing education on something the audience might not normally learn about.
“You don’t hear about this in the mass media,” she said. “I hope that (the people here) do what Wicklund said––stay informed, look at alternative resources, and try vegan foods.”
