More Mad Cow Hype
From Fox News:
The headline for this article was "Meat From Infected Cow Reached Eight States." After reading that, now read the last two paragraphs of the article. Doesn't the headline seem a little strong? Yes, portions of the infected cow may have reached 8 different states but according to the officials the infected meat poses almost zero risk to consumers, meaning that even if a piece of meat from the cow had been eaten, chances are very, very slim that the person would come to any harm.
Despite the fact that we've found exactly one cow among the millions of cattle in this country that is infected with a disease that may or may not even be harmful to humans this remains a top news story? Is it out of any concern for the public? Heck no, its being hyped to increase ratings.
Do you have any idea what kind of damage this intensive, unwarranted media coverage is doing to our agriculture industry? This type of media coverage is not needed in a nation where an off-the-cuff comment from Oprah nearly brought the cattle industry to its knees.
Listen, "Mad Cow Disease" is a pretty scary sounding disease but its not nearly the type of doomsday infection the media is making it out to be.
Meat from a Holstein sick with mad cow disease has now reached retail markets in eight states and one territory, but still poses no health risk, Agriculture Department officials said Sunday.
Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an Agriculture Department veterinarian, said investigators have determined that some of the meat from the diseased dairy cow slaughtered Dec. 9 in Washington state went to Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana and Guam. Earlier, officials had said most of the meat went to Washington and Oregon, with lesser amounts to California and Nevada, for distribution to consumers.
"The recalled meat represents essentially zero risk to consumers," said Petersen, of the USDA's food safety agency.
He said the parts most likely to carry infection -- the brain, spinal cord and lower intestine -- were removed before the meat from the infected cow was cut and processed for human consumption.
The headline for this article was "Meat From Infected Cow Reached Eight States." After reading that, now read the last two paragraphs of the article. Doesn't the headline seem a little strong? Yes, portions of the infected cow may have reached 8 different states but according to the officials the infected meat poses almost zero risk to consumers, meaning that even if a piece of meat from the cow had been eaten, chances are very, very slim that the person would come to any harm.
Despite the fact that we've found exactly one cow among the millions of cattle in this country that is infected with a disease that may or may not even be harmful to humans this remains a top news story? Is it out of any concern for the public? Heck no, its being hyped to increase ratings.
Do you have any idea what kind of damage this intensive, unwarranted media coverage is doing to our agriculture industry? This type of media coverage is not needed in a nation where an off-the-cuff comment from Oprah nearly brought the cattle industry to its knees.
Listen, "Mad Cow Disease" is a pretty scary sounding disease but its not nearly the type of doomsday infection the media is making it out to be.
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