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Old 29-05-2004, 01:05 AM
paghat
 
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Default Bone/ Blood Meal and Mad Cow Disease

In article , Janet Baraclough..
wrote:

The message
from (paghat) contains these words:

In article , George Orwell
wrote:


Does anyone know of any research that has been done on the potential for
contracting mad cow disease from using bone meal or blood meal as a soil
amendment for veggies or herbs. That is, assuming no direct contact with
the stuff.


Four cases in Great Britain were not traceable to any meat eaten, but all
four were inveterate gardeners who used bonemeal.


Some of the victims were vegetarians. I have not heard that all the
vegetarians were inveterate gardeners who used bonemeal.

The majority
of Britain's human cases ate at MacDonalds -- MacDonalds was the sole
source of the contaminated meat! --


Er, for the benefit of others who may not know..Paghat is joking. No
single source of infected meat was identifiable.


By no means a joke. Deaths from e-coli & mad cow is why they are so often
called McDeath or McDisease, serving Big McBrain & McPoo burgers.

Most or all the UK cases were from meats processed by McKey Food
Corporation under contract to McDonalds. McDeadly was where victims
purchased the greater percentage of beef in their diets. McDonalds became
McLibel trying to sue people into shutting up about it; they didn't care
if they won or lost the suits, which were intended to be costly for their
foes. The suits were defined as "strategic lawsuits to stop public
activism" & succeeded in frightening even news agencies into mentioning
it, because short of a doubleblind independent study (which was never
going to happen) no proof could ever be proof enough, & McLibel would sue
& sue & sue & become the biggest nuisances on earth. Newspapers would
rather have McDonald's advertising dollars rather than be the target of
another of McDonald's Strategic Suits Against Public Activism, so they
won't harp on the connection.

But somehow in their suit-happy mood McDonalds never had the nerve to sue
Eric Schlosser who documented McDonald's role in spreading diseases to
people, because that's stuff that won't help them once it is quoted
thereafter from sworn court testimony.


but four victims were evidently
exposed only to bone meal fertilizers.


That theory has not been publicised in Britain afaik, so could you
provide a source for it please?


It was reported on Dateline in August 20, 1997, that four victims in UK of
the human form of Mad Cow were not meat eaters, but had been exposed to
bonemeal in their gardening practices. It was also in numerous newspapers
at the time. The Dateline report had the daughter of one of the victim
describing her father in his rose garden stirring up a veritable cloud of
bonemeal dust. Doubtlessly it was in UK newspapers just as commonly at the
time. But public memory is short, & when a new Associated Press article
does appear as a reminder (such as by Rukmini Callimachi this past
December, in the wake of a new mad cow scare) who really reads the
newspapers these days? Callimachi reported that only THREE
non-meat-eating gardeners died, but previous articles always say it was
four; there's always absolute agreement they were gardeners who used
bonemeal, & had no other possible point of exposure to the deadly prions.

In consequence of these facts, the British Royal Horticutural Society
recommen ds that bonemeal users never use bonemeal without a facemask. The
utter uselessness of the sorts of masks you can buy in nearest hardware
store, unfortunately RHS failed to note that.

After the mad cow scare last year here in Washington state (thanks to
infected cows brought in from Canada making it into the human foodchain) a
number of safety measures were put into place that never existed before,
& which even now have no enforcement system. The recalls included bonemeal
products using cowparts, & also soaps. One federal inspector said that
there were so many niche markets for the secondary leavings of diseased
cattle that it was impossible to recall all of it. Several distributors of
this deadly garbage "voluntarily" withdrew bonemeal & tallow products from
the given time-period of BSE known to be in the product chain, but
volunteering was just a trick to guarantee the government would not in the
future harrass anyone with any new laws with teeth or enforcement of any
kind. It remains a self-regulating industry, & cleaning up their act is
strictly a matter of public relations.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
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