Mistyeyeddreamer
29-12-03, 02:37 PM
I think it was last year, there was a report in the newspapers stating that the government had decided that blood transfusions for children under a certain age (I think it was ten) would only consist of blood obtained from the United States.
At the time, I wrote to the Daily Mail and pointed out that Chronic Wasting Disease was running rampant through the elk and deer population of North America. CWD is a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, very similar to BSE. There had been suspicions that clusters of apparent Creutzfeld Jacob Disease amongst some hunting populations was actually caused by CWD. We now know that some people in this country have died from vCJD, contracted from eating contaminated beef. Could the same thing be happening to people who have eaten CWD contaminated venison?
The Americans refused to admit the fact that BSE might be in their herds and when asked where the deer might have contracted CWD one bright spark said they probably ate cattle feed that was put out on the ranges as feed for cattle.
The US slaughters 35 million cattle a year yet only tests around 20,000 for BSE. Cattle that seem well one day and the following day are found lying on the ground (downer cattle) are routinely slaughtered and sold to food manufacturers and in some cases sold cheaply to schools for school dinners.
Alzheimer rates have skyrocketed in the US since World War II. And two universities did tests on the brains of people who had died after apparently suffering from Altzheimer's Disease. They found that around 15% had actually been suffering from Creutzfeld Jacob Disease. The symptoms of both diseases are similar and some of those people had obviously been misdiagnosed.
One wonders just how effective the 20,000 tests were, considering that the US government had to send the tissue samples to Britain to get a definite diagnosis.
So from all these facts one could assume that despite all the denials of the US government, BSE is in fact within the cattle herds of the US.
This brings us to the question, just how safe is the blood that is coming from the US to be used on our children and what is our government doing to ascertain this? Are tests done on the blood? Are we just taking the word of the US that their blood is safe?
I have a very bad feeling about all this :(
Misty
At the time, I wrote to the Daily Mail and pointed out that Chronic Wasting Disease was running rampant through the elk and deer population of North America. CWD is a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, very similar to BSE. There had been suspicions that clusters of apparent Creutzfeld Jacob Disease amongst some hunting populations was actually caused by CWD. We now know that some people in this country have died from vCJD, contracted from eating contaminated beef. Could the same thing be happening to people who have eaten CWD contaminated venison?
The Americans refused to admit the fact that BSE might be in their herds and when asked where the deer might have contracted CWD one bright spark said they probably ate cattle feed that was put out on the ranges as feed for cattle.
The US slaughters 35 million cattle a year yet only tests around 20,000 for BSE. Cattle that seem well one day and the following day are found lying on the ground (downer cattle) are routinely slaughtered and sold to food manufacturers and in some cases sold cheaply to schools for school dinners.
Alzheimer rates have skyrocketed in the US since World War II. And two universities did tests on the brains of people who had died after apparently suffering from Altzheimer's Disease. They found that around 15% had actually been suffering from Creutzfeld Jacob Disease. The symptoms of both diseases are similar and some of those people had obviously been misdiagnosed.
One wonders just how effective the 20,000 tests were, considering that the US government had to send the tissue samples to Britain to get a definite diagnosis.
So from all these facts one could assume that despite all the denials of the US government, BSE is in fact within the cattle herds of the US.
This brings us to the question, just how safe is the blood that is coming from the US to be used on our children and what is our government doing to ascertain this? Are tests done on the blood? Are we just taking the word of the US that their blood is safe?
I have a very bad feeling about all this :(
Misty