[muglo] Re: 100% OT (was 90% OT (was: Re: What'swithMacOutpost?)

Eric D,

> I do feel compelled to respond to your part on BSE b/c, as a biologist I'm
> surprised at your lack of understanding of the BSE catastrophy. This e-mail
> is not meant as a rebuttal to your ideas but as a clarification of facts,
> with as little editorial comment as possible.

Eric the catastrophe was the people's response to such a thing, not the
actual infection.  That has nothing to do with biology and 100% to do with
public relations, which is a business thing.  If you seem to think the
future doesn't have any microbiological or genetic threats in store, then
think again.  
 
> I wasn't even referring to mad cow in Canada (it's not even on my radar
> screen as an environmental/health issue (it's an economic one)). Though, now
> that you mention it, I guess it is perhaps an issue of private failure since
> the industry resisted the strict regs which would've placated the US and
> Japan immediately and, most likely prevented the occurrence of the disease
> in the first place. They resisted (as does nearly every industry to
> oversight and regs in the absence of *immediate* economic threat... the
> precautionary principle is absent from the lexicon of industry and gov't
> when it is controlled by industry to too great an extent (Ontario PC party
> anyone... gets TWICE the money that the two opposition parties get COMBINED
> though they are supported by 65% of the populace... all b/c of corporate
> donations) b/c it would've cost them more.

Eric, how is it that suddenly it shows up deep in the heart of Canada?  Some
cow flew over all the other provinces and decided to land in Alberta?  In
light of the thread, don't you think this is a bit redundant?  Next you'll
say the heat wave in France was due to a private organization?
 
> Now any additional costs incurred b/c of stricter regs would've completely
> made up for the impending collapse of the Canadian cattle industry b/c of
> *one* cow (think what this has done to Canada's beef farmers' international
> repuation) -- the problem with prevention is that success *cannot* be seen
> and it is rarely possible to measure. Had we had the regs in place and
> enforced (unfortunately not everyone is ethical, especially when the bottom
> line is concerned), BSE wouldn't have cropped up in our system in the first
> place, *but* cattle farmers would've bitched and moaned about the inordinate
> restrictions that were raising their costs.

Knowledge of the nature of the infection would be properly placed before
anybody could even comment on how the disease works, and is transmitted, if
it indeed is that.  As for restrictions and the moaning, you'll find that in
any industry, until it pops its head up.  That's natural.  From your
'government services' angle, we'd have anything not recyclable on the
market, people walking everywhere and zero transportation, and everything
organic.  Unless there's a definite measurable, feelable reason for people
to put up restrictions, farmers and fishermen will moan on their
restrictions.  Yes, it will catch up with them, but you have to recognize
economic forces at play.
 
> As a pre-PS -- the Japanese are entirely justified (in the world of
> tit-for-tat in which we (as Canadians) particiapte) in keeping our cattle
> out. "What comes around, goes around." We kept their beef products out b/c
> they had only 7 (IIRC) cases of mad cow. They fixed their regulatory system
> as a result (of the mad cows) yet we still kept their beef out (for that
> reason I fail to shed tears for our beef farmers... they weren't exactly
> clamouring for the Japanese to be let back in when they fixed things up).

Again, business.  You make it sound as if it's all surprising.
 
> 1. it was a case where BSE arose spontaneously, OR it was a BSE-like disease
> (this was my *very* first thought when I heard the report... especially
> given that it was only one case). Spongiform encephalopathies are not the
> exclusive domain of "prions", and do not necessarily have to be transmitted
> to develop. Enough humans have developed variant-KJD (Kreuzfeld-Jacob
> disease... essentially the same as BSE except it's often inherited) on their
> own to demonstrate that it can arise spontaneously!!! There's no reason to
> expect that BSE couldn't arise through mutation of a scaffolding-enzyme
> (another protein that helps other proteins fold in the proper manner).

Well, that nature of ribosomal mess-up is applicable in any organism then.
The stats show that it's a stable system.  Saying that 'mutations' is the
cause, is a very unreliable scare, no more than 'well the power can go out
everywhere all at once so we'll never use power'.  It does happen, but
that's only to address that it does happen.
 
> 2. It was transmitted to the cow through contaminated feed -- likely given
> the cow's history (i.e. the cow was fed animal protein -- BSE is a protein
> transmitted only through the food chain or parent to offspring (not sure if
> it can be transmitted to an offspring through semen)).

If this was the case, then it would have shown up elsewhere, given that this
route was possible.  Nothing else happened.  The stats would suggest to me
that it had formed by itself.  That's nothing to get alarmed about, however
people did.  
 
> It is the latter issue (animal protein fed to animals) that put the
> proverbial "nail in Maggie Thatcher's coffin" at the end of her
> administration.

Only due to ignorant people that think the world is a fun, organic,
Coombuya, panacea.  Reality is, things happen.  Another word for such
malfunctions, is Cancer.  We don't speak in such ways of people that have
that, do we?  Nor do we blame 'business' or 'private organizations'.  In
fact, it's business that deals with such things.

> Failing to implement the (then) new, much more rigorous regs proved to be
> the fatal mistake, especially given what the gov't scientists were telling
> their handlers at the time (the mistake was fixed by the late 80s but it was
> too late for the people who went on to developed fatal vKJD).

Perhaps so.  The alternative would be to put restrictions into place that
might have forced economic bariers onto an already weak infastructure.
 
> The savings derived from allowing the marketplace to best determine the path
> of meeting the end goal were dwarfed by the total collapse of the UK beef
> market, and, more importantly, in the total collapse of confidence in
> government scientists (this is one of the most compelling arguments for why
> science should be done INDEPENDENT of gov't and business -- gov't has to
> worry about getting re-elected (pleasing people... through, for e.g., the
> stupidity of subsidised and flat-rate power) and pleasing business, and
> business itself has every motivation to keep bad news quiet as "proprietary"
> information)).

Perhaps so.  That's a reality of today.  Market demand and inflation and
cost management are not in synch.  That's the way things go, in or out of
anybody's decision.  Just understand why people do things and everything
will become clear.  As for independent third party testing, I agree.
 
> In a way the BSE crisis was useful -- it has made Europeans (and especially
> Brits) skeptical of genetically modified foods and has slowed (and even
> reversed) their adoption (sometimes GM stuff has its place -- reducing
> pesticide use in cotton for example, but in other cases it simply shifts the
> burden from one pesticide to another (& exacerbates the problem of
> mono-culture and a miniscule genetic variability (& thus robustness) in the
> food supply)). Though I doubt that they're all that dangerous, wide-spread
> use of GM is an ecological disaster in the making (plus, there's no
> guarantee that we won't see health consequences either (scientists who claim
> there won't be any are flat out lieing -- they cannot make such claims & are
> no longer speak as scientists but as cheerleaders of an untested
> technology)) -- natural selection resulting in evolution is awfully efficent
> and with such a wonderful new set of genes on which to perform selection
> mother nature must be rubbing her hands with glee (for all the havoc she may
> wreak... provided she's mischievous as she no doubt is ;).

Natural selection is not at play in any food industry.  Corn cannot survive
as an organism, on its own.  That's how far our system has come.  If we fail
to recognize that the pressures in private organizations aren't a part of
today's reality, then we'll soon (ignorantly) adopt practices that will
erradicate our necessary infastructures (food, medicines, power) very
quickly.  Then we'll be breaking eggshells if we can get eggs.


--- Rich Fortnum / Viaduct Productions / London (EST)
--- Interactive Web Design / Databases / Wireless Data
--- http://www.viaduct-productions.com


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