News of a new “mad cow” in the United States could not come at a worse time. The U.S. is in the process of trying to win back Japan and China’s business, not fully restored since the first U.S. mad cow, discovered in 2003. Ninety-eight percent of U.S. beef exports evaporated within 24 hours [...].
[...] Though prions are not technically “alive” because they lack a nucleus, they manage to reproduce. And though not technically “alive,” prions are almost impossible to “kill” or destroy because they are not inactivated by cooking, heat, ammonia, bleach, hydrogen peroxide, benzene, alcohol, phenol, lye, formaldehyde or radiation.
[...] As the U.S. now seeks “negligible risk” status for mad cow disease, there’s no reason to believe its institutionalized ineptitude, denial and misinformation about beef risks has changed and therefore that such a classification means anything. In fact, there is only one government safeguard that beef consumers can count on: if more mad cows surface, the names of the ranches that produce them will be protected.
Zie ook:
Geen EU-ban op vlees uit VS na vondst gekkekoeienziekte
Trouw, 25 april 2012
Illustratie: BSE-prionen; bron University of Vermont
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