The statistical probablility of contracting any disease by eating the meat from a cow infected with BSE is minimal though not zero. The hysteria makes me wonder whether the Canadian government is deliberately engaging in a policy to weaken the Canadian economy and at the same time trade softwood lumber for beef in the ongoing trade dispute with the United States.
Real Caouette, ora pro nobis. Q. What do you call it when Canada gets taken to the cleaners? A. Martinizing.
Re: Re: Shoud US open its border to Canadian Beef All I know about this is what I read in the popular press. I certainly have no technical expertise. But I worry about this a little. I gather that cases of mad cow are diagnosed by gross pathology. In other words, in order to be declared a mad cow case, an animal has to show characteristic brain lesions. But the prions responsible for the disease have a very long incubation period, which in humans can extend to decades. So if the herds aren't being checked for the prions themselves (probably a laborious laboratory process) as opposed to the eventual visible pathologies, the causative agent might be a lot more widespread than we know. It's possible that many animals are infected and can spead the disease, but die for unrelated reasons or are slaughtered before the disease makes itself known in gross visible form. If that's the case, we might not know the impact on the human popuation for ten years or more.
