Sorry, Ray. I didn't mean to be snotty, superior or dismissive. I just didn't understand your comment.
The Vermont sheep that were slaughtered had no "illness". 4 animals out three or four hundred over the past 5 years had positive tests for an allegedly "unidentified TSE" which was only detected by experiemental/non-peer reviewed testing. The tests were not done against valid control groups and no tissue was retained for subsequent testing. Dozens of sheep from those flocks had tested negative over the past 5 years.
Your government refused to allow validated testing to any group of the animals, buried documents confirming the shoddy science they employed, refused to allow the sheep to return to Belgium where they would have been held in quarantine and tested during the incubation period of TSE, and threatened, intimidated and bullied the owners of the stock.
TSE's don't blow through the air like virises. It is believed they are transmitted through the species they affect via consumption of placental tissues afterbirth in mother's clean up of her young. And, from species to species via ruminant to ruminant feedstuffs, likely from the rendering of "scrapie" infected sheep. Scrapie is a TSE which has been in the US for decades and in England for hundreds of years without any suggestion that it creates direct health risks to humans. There was absolutely no risk in allowing the quarintine to continue with valid testing of animals. Scrapie free status for flocks around the world is established by monitoring the flock for a 5 year period. Why not the Vermont flock which, by valid science had just about completed that period and the flock owners were more than willing to continue such monitoring and quarantine for another 5 if the sheep could be spared?
The Vermont sheep had no "illness". They didn't have F&M, and if they truly had an "unidentified TSE", they wouldn't recover. The government, in my view, engaged in a USDA funding/appropriations battle and to prove the agency's effectiveness to a powerful beef lobby, used the sheep to further the trade battle with the EU over its refusal to import our hormone laden beef.
So, now, we have several hundred dead sheep in Iowa. The USDA looks like an effective entity in the eyes of the public. But, the question is whether they will release any of the tests which will show that the sheep were not ill and have no "unidentified TSE"? |
