[gardeners] OT - Mad cow disease in cats
Margaret Lauterbach (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 11 Mar 2001 08:44:29 -0700
The March 12 Newsweek magazine has a cover story on mad cow disease
reporting that cats fed beef byproducts in cat food have developed symptoms
of BSE. Prions seem to reside primarily in the brain and nerve fibers,
including the spinal cord. Should Americans stop eating beef? The article
certainly gave me more than pause. I still have some Wranglers in the
refrig which I'll toss out, and I won't buy hamburger again. They haven't
found BSE in America, but critics say they would if they looked harder. Of
that British ground mad cow feed, it was shipped all over the world, to
more than 80 countries. Indonesia imported some 600,000 metric tons, and
Thailand 185,000 metric tons. These countries are apparently not
monitoring for disease in animals there. Scares me. Margaret L