Cows, capitalism, and cover-ups: The politics and economics of mad cow disease

Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science, 2001 by Best, Steven

TSE Planet

"Consider using spray-dried bovine plasma. New Product gives boost to postweaned calves." Advertisement in October 1997 issue of Dairy Herd Management

'We're counting on this species barrier [between cattle and humans] to help protect us [from BSE]."Paul Brown, Chair of FDA TSE Advisory Panel

"We always thought that these things [TSEs] had a species barrier which would make it unlikely they could transmit to humans, but gradually over the years we began to realize that the barrier wasn't as absolute as we imagined."Veterinary scientist Richard Marsh

TSEs are commonly classified as infectious and fatal "prion" diseases which take root in brains.3 Beginning with kuru disease that appeared around the turn of the century as a result of cannibalistic practices in the Fore tribe in New Guinea, TSEs have emerged in human beings, sheep, cows, mink, pigs, deer, elk, chickens, cats, and other species.4 British and U.S. government assurances to the contrary, TSEs are highly volatile and easily jump species boundaries.

In fact, the current scientific consensus is that a deadly TSE path has moved from sheep (scrapie) to cattle (BSE) to human beings (nvCJD). The vehicle of transmission is the rendering process that recycles animal carcasses by transforming them into cheap sources of protein feed for other animals. Cattle contract BSE when they are fed sheep brains and spinal cords infected with scrapie; human beings contract nvCJD when they consume BSE-infected cattle. The unfortunate person who comes down with nvCJD will experience a wide range of symptoms including insomnia, depression, confusion, coordination problems, dementia, loss of vision and hearing, convulsions, paralysis, and, ultimately, a slow, agonizing, incurable death as worm-like prions eat away the brain (thus the term "spongiform"). Sometimes the disease strikes relatively quickly, but the incubation period can last as long as 30 or 40 years, which is why the worst likely is yet to come.

What all TSEs seem to have in common is that they result from unnatural feeding practices, be they cannibalism or rendering. However unusual one's concept of a delicacy, eating the brains of one's own or another species does not seem to be a good idea. While human cannibalism may no longer to be practiced anywhere in the world, the same certainly cannot be said for rendering, a practice which dates back to ancient Egypt and is a defining and unavoidable feature of modern meat production for mass consumption.

In England, as in the U.S. and other advanced industrial countries, rendering industries process huge volumes of animal remains. Everyday in the U.S., ghastly plants recycle 100 million pounds of heads, brains, stomachs, intestines, spinal cords, feet, hooves, tails, and blood, cooking it in huge vats to make a deadly and disgusting soup. The rendering industries accomplish a two-fold purpose. First, they dispose of mountains of animal remains that otherwise would poison the air (if burned) and contaminate the land (if buried).5 Second, they create profitable animal by-products that can be used in items such as candle wax and lipstick (tallow) and animal feed (bone meal).