Much delayed posting of a good link or two

Here's a few articles I've put aside to post, and haven't had time for:

How to read medical papers
Applying epi to gang violence
Growing meat in vitro
The feasibility of eradicating malaria
The loss of biodiversity in developing agriculture

No promises to start posting again, just thought I'd clean up my old backlog.

Should it be law?

I'm not going to say if rBST (known most often to laymen as bovine growth hormone) is a good thing or a bad thing for the dairy industry. I'm not going to say if it is harmful to humans or not. I'm not even going to say if it is harmful to cows or not. Mind you, I have opinions on all these topics; I'm just not going to say right now.

What I am going to say is people should be able to choose to avoid it if their little hearts desire. According to this article, some people (with ties to the drug's largest producer, oddly enough), are lobbying to stop "hormone-free" labels.

I could understand, if there were local regulations banning the use of an FDA-approved drugs, lobbying to remove those regulations. Trying to create a regulation against a label that says you don't use those drugs? Unnecessary, wasteful, stupid! Allow people the choice. Maybe this means you lose your market, but that's how capitalism works (at least, in theory): informed people choose where to spend their money. If you can't afford to produce rBST-free milk at the price offered and you can't sell non-rBST-free milk, you need to get out of the dairy business.

At long last

I've been busy again, lately, and haven't really had a chance to weigh in on the humane slaughter issue. Instead of breaking news, then, here's some afterthoughts:

I was not amused by this article. This is fear-mongering, fueled by the fact that most people don't know their burgers are coming from dairy cows (I've never met a layperson who knew that; they're always a bit shocked). The understanding of epidemiology here is particularly egregious:

Dairy cows can also carry some common maladies, including mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder; foot rot, which they can develop standing for long periods in manure, mud and damp straw; and Johne’s disease.

Scientists believe these diseases are not carried into the human food chain, with one exception: Health and animal scientists are currently debating whether the traits of Johne’s are responsible for Chron’s disease in humans. Chron’s disease is an intestinal disorder that can cause inflammation of the colon, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea and weight loss. Some argue it’s these very problems that prompt farmers to dispatch the cows to the slaughterhouse in the first place.

One: why mention all these "terrible" diseases if they aren't entering the food chain? Two: hate to say it, but milk is a bigger risk than beef for MAP transmission (MAP is the cause of Johne's disease, and is under debate as a contributing factor in Crohn's disease), so I'd rather have them at the slaughterhouse, where the risk of contamination is minimal, than in the milking parlor.

Lesson: don't get your information about your food from the editorial page!

I was very amused by this article. USDA inspectors may not have been doing their job, but that's really no excuse for the Humane Society avoiding their legal responsibility . . . and why were they contacting local DA, then releasing the video on YouTube with national promotion? Sounds like they wanted to appear to do the legal thing while making the biggest publicity. Shame on HSUS!

Humane Society grilled on not advising USDA about Hallmark

By Janie Gabbett on 2/26/2008 for Meatingplace.com

WASHINGTON — Congressmen repeatedly questioned a representative of the Humane Society of the United States on Tuesday about why the group did not immediately inform USDA of video evidence workers were abusing downed cattle at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co.

At a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on food safety, Michael Greger, HSUS director of public health and animal agriculture, said the San Bernardino District Attorney's office asked the group to hold the information until it completed its own investigation. The congressmen, however, said HSUS could have discretely gone to USDA earlier than it did.

Greger hinted at more HSUS exposes, telling the committee the videographer's identity must be guarded so as not to compromise current and future investigations. The Hallmark/Westland video, which was shown at the hearing, resulted in the nation's largest beef recall. (See Hallmark/Westland recalls 143 million lbs of beef — largest in history on Meatingplace.com, Feb. 18, 2008.)

Hallmark/Westland President Steve Mendell did not attend the hearing, declining the committee's request for him to testify. Committee members said they are looking at compelling him to come before the committee sometime in the future.

Greger told the committee that Hallmark workers said in criminal testimony in California that they were pressured by supervisors to get the cows up and into slaughter. Hallmark slaughtered mostly spent dairy cattle, often fatigued after being trucked in from surrounding states.

Members of the subcommittee, which is chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), used the hearing as an opportunity to renew calls for: banning all meat from downer cattle from the food supply, mandatory traceability standards, mandatory recall authority for USDA and the Food and Drug Administration and the creation of a single food safety agency.

William Marler, a Seattle lawyer who represents victims of foodborne illnesses, however, suggested USDA might have actually gone too far with the Hallmark recall.

"Although stunned by the video …I am more stunned that the recall has ballooned to 143 million pounds of meat and is quickly encompassing products that might contain trace amounts of the meat. No people have been sickened. I wonder if resources are better spent elsewhere," he testified before the committee.

First ethanol, now methane?

Apparently the NRC guidelines for nutrients in manure are out-of-date, causing a wonderful renewable source of energy to be scrapped. I have one question, though: couldn't they just change the process to make up for the change in the manure? Oh, wait, that would probably cost more money. Sometimes I forget why corporations exist.

Smithfield says manure didn't make the grade for biofuel

By Janie Gabbett on 2/13/2008 for Meatingplace.com

Smithfield Foods said it sold its Utah biofuels plant because after three years of trying, it concluded it could not generate enough methane from the animal waste it was using to make Smithfield BioEnergy economically practical.

The company explained what went wrong a day after Beacon Energy Corp. announced it had purchased the plant. (See Smithfield biofuel affiliate sold on Meatingplace.com, February 13, 2008.)

The goal of Smithfield BioEnergy was to capture methane from manure provided by Smithfield's Circle Four Farms swine production operation near Milford, Utah, convert the methane into bio-methanol, and then convert that — along with animal and vegetable fats — into bio-diesel fuel.

"However, we determined that our bio-methanol production plant was not economically feasible — and never would be," the company said in a statement.

Why not?

The facility was designed using engineering and planning assumptions about the strength of the nutrient content of animal manure taken from government data and technical guidance manuals. Those assumptions proved to be wrong.

The nutrient content of the animal manure produced on Smithfield's farms proved to be more than 50 percent below published data estimates, which the company attributed to such factors as:

• animal genetic improvement
• improved feed conversion
• reduced water volume used in production systems
• and precisely formulated animal diets

"The fact that our Circle Four Farms operation is producing fewer nutrients than had been anticipated is a good thing from an environmental perspective, but the unintended consequence is that we don't have enough methane to make our Smithfield BioEnergy operation economically practical," the company said.

Smithfield is applying what it learned to other facilities around the country to reduce its environmental footprint. For example, projects are in place at facilities in Tar Heel, N.C., Plainwell, Mich., and Green Bay, Wis., to capture and use methane as an alternative and renewable fuel source.

I should post this on Friday . . .

. . . but at least it's still Lent. Yes, that's right, fish is not meat and poultry are not livestock! I wonder if the Pope will ratify the judge's ruling?

Judge rules poultry are not 'livestock'

By Alicia Karapetian on 3/5/2008 for Meatingplace.com

A San Francisco judge has ruled that chickens are not "livestock," and, as a result, are not subject to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, according to court filings. A lawsuit brought by the Humane Society of the United States against the Agriculture Department argued that USDA had misinterpreted the 50-year-old act. "The court finds the legislative history strongly demonstrates unambiguous congressional intent that livestock, as used in the HMSA, does not include poultry," U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrote in her opinion. Judge Patel granted summary judgment in USDA's favor and dismissed the lawsuit. HSUS's argument was based on a 1958 dictionary definition of livestock that said that the word encompassed "useful" animals on a farm, while USDA said that the term livestock has always internally meant to exclude poultry. "The plain language of these bills indicates that Congress intended to exclude poultry from the definition of livestock when it enacted H.R. 8308, the bill that eventually became the HMSA," Patel wrote.

A response to the meat industry, minus the shrillness

I've been meaning to write about this article for some time now, but I've been too busy to do it properly. Even now, it'll be brief.

The idea is that we, as Americans, eat too much meat. I would have to agree. You could say we're biased, the author and I: he wrote a vegetarian cookbook, I was a vegetarian for a few years. Still, my experience is that little or no meat in my diet makes me healthier. His research shows that Americans are eating twice as much protein (mostly animal-based) as the (high-end) recommendation. I think we have an argument.

The environmental issue is a touchy one, but he makes his point well -- we produce far too much manure in concentrated areas to spread on fields (some dairy farms are now leasing fields just to spread their manure). We use a lot of water and energy growing and transporting grain to feed livestock. It's not true that all meat production should be banned; there are places in this world, as mentioned in the article, where grass-fed livestock is the only agricultural option. I've been to a couple of those places and believe me, you wouldn't want to be a vegetarian there! We shouldn't deny people a chance to raise their own food, no matter what the moral guilt of a rich society tells us we should do.

And that's really the point -- we, as citizens of a rich country with a wide range of food options, shouldn't be eating so much meat. What should we be eating? To quote another NYT columnist, "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Imagining a theory

Quick update on the cloned-animals-as-food issue: this article contains a scary quote from an FDA scientist.

It is beyond our imagination to even have a theory for why the food is unsafe.

Wow. They can't even imagine a theory. Umm, I don't want the people responsible for protecting our food supply (which mostly consists of imagining threats and counteracting them) unable to imagine a theory here. I can think of a few theories. Not good ones, of course, but he didn't say credible theory -- he said they couldn't imagine a theory.

I hope our FDA guys will start improving their imaginations, fast.

The pandemic that wasn't?

I have 10 minutes, so I thought I'd play a little catch-up. Basically, this article is saying that we got a combination of lucky and prepared to avoid pandemic avian flu. Good summary -- we were lucky it wouldn't (and didn't) mutate that quickly and we were prepared with large investments in vaccine and diagnostic research. The question now, of course, is how to keep those dollars coming in the face of large-scale complacency by the public. Here's hoping this doesn't turn into a "boy who cried wolf" scenario!

Cloned meat is safe? Or offspring . . . oh, never mind

I've put off blogging for a little while (too much writing in my real job), but I do need to comment about this:

The FDA ruling does not mean you will be eating Beta. It means that people who have spent large amounts of money to clone their best cows will be able to sell you the milk and meat of their offspring. The actual cows are worth too much to butcher.

I'm not taking a stand on this issue -- I just don't want people to be more confused than the media has already made them.

More waiting for a Farm Bill

It's been delayed for a few years because the process is so time-consuming. It's been delayed this year because Congress and Bush can't agree on anything. Oh, wait, it's still going to be delayed, because whatever they turn out is going to be vetoed.

Well, that's legislation for you -- but the ag committee can't do much else until this goes through. That means delays in funding the USDA. The USDA does a number of important things (food inspection, WIC and food stamps, not to mention basic research like mine) that really shouldn't get put on the back burner for too long.

But I guess that's why the bill is so difficult -- it has to cover all these things, too, along with little stuff like subsidies.

Senate passes farm bill, moves to conference under veto threat

By Janie Gabbett on 12/17/2007 for Meatingplace.com

The Senate on Friday voted 79-14 to pass a version of the 2007 farm bill the White House has already threatened to veto, sending the legislation to the House-Senate conference committee to hash out differences and agree a bill that the White House will sign. "This legislation is fundamentally flawed. Unless the House and Senate can come together and craft a measure that contains real reform, we are no closer to a good farm bill than we were before today's passage," Acting Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner said in a statement. Conner acknowledged he was disappointed the Senate approved the bill by such a wide margin. Broadly, the Administration opposes the cost of the $286 billion farm bill, which it says includes $22 billion in unfunded commitments and includes $15 billion in new taxes, as well as the fact that it did not limit subsidies to wealthier farm owners as much as the Administration sought. Packer livestock ownership The Senate version of the bill includes a livestock title (Title X) that contains a provision that would only allow meatpackers to own livestock 14 days before slaughter. "We have a number of concerns with key aspects of that whole competition title," Conner said, when asked on a teleconference with reporters if the Administration would seek changes in the packer livestock ownership provision. "We're going to be working very closely with the conferees in both the House and Senate to address this issue very directly as we go into the conference," Mark Keenum, under secretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, told reporters, adding that the provision is, "impeding commerce and trade with a specific commodity, in this situation livestock, and that's a slippery slope." Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) praised the livestock title, saying in a statement, "The bill's livestock title will promote market opportunities for producers; it will protect animal health; and it will strengthen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act." COOL and state-inspected meat Both House and Senate versions of the bill contain mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) provisions that meat industry groups have agreed they can live with. The House version of the bill includes a provision that would allow some state-inspected meat to cross state lines.

Translation: foreigners are dirty!

Okay, this doesn't really surprise me. What does surprise me is that this hasn't come up before. The real lesson: cook your meat fully (and don't drink raw milk -- the population of poultry workers and that of milkers isn't all that different).

More than 200 test positive for TB at poultry plant

By Alicia Karapetian on 11/5/2007 for Meatingplace.com

Some 28 percent of the 765 employees screened for tuberculosis at one of Wayne Farms LLC's poultry processing facilities in Decatur, Ala., tested positive, the Decatur Daily reported.

Final testing was completed at the Alabama State Department of Public Health's Tubrerculosis Control Division Wednesday, with a total of 212 positive skin tests.

The testing was done in two batches. On Oct. 11, 167 employees were tested, resulting in 47 positive skin tests, one of which was an active, and contagious, case.

More recently, the final group of tests was completed last week, which resulted in 167 positive skin tests from a pool of 598 samples. Those most recently tested and with positive skin tests will receive chest X-rays on Thursday to determine if any of those cases are active and contagious, according to the Decatur Daily.

Scott Jones, interim director at the state's TB division told the Decatur Daily that he is not surprised by the number of positive skin tests given that many of the workers at the facility were born outside of the United States.

Really?!?! Not a lobbyist?

This is surprising! No, I'm not bashing Republicans -- most secretaries of agriculture have industry ties. Schafer, though, seems to be clean (of the ag industry; he has worked in other industries). Nice change . . . although the new Farm Bill looks like more of the same . . . one step at a time!

Bush nominates new ag secretary

By Tom Johnston on 11/1/2007 for Meatingplace.com

President Bush has nominated Edward T. Schafer to serve as the nation's next Agriculture Secretary, saying Schafer's service over two terms as governor of North Dakota has well qualified him for the job, the White House announced.

Schafer, a Republican who elected not to make another run for North Dakota governor office in 2000, will succeed Mike Johanns, who resigned to campaign for Nebraska's Senate seat. (See Johanns announces U.S. Senate bid on Meatingplace.com, Oct. 11, 2007.)

Chuck Conner, who has been serving as acting agriculture secretary, applauded the president's pick.

"Having served two terms as governor of an agricultural state, he (Schafer) knows the issues," Conner said. "He has led trade missions, promoted renewable energy and advanced rural development in his home state. His reputation for being a strong leader with a straightforward approach and optimistic outlook will fit perfectly here at the department, and it will be appreciated by the farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders whom we serve."

Jay Truitt, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, also spoke highly of Schafer.

"He will bring a fresh perspective to USDA at a time when American agriculture is facing many new challenges in policy development and opportunities in innovation and technology," Truitt said. "This is a critical time for U.S. agriculture, and we're looking forward to working with Mr. Schafer to help guide the cattle and beef industry into the future."

The title says it all

Yep, no surprises here:

New cancer report says limit red and processed meat; industry disagrees

By Janie Gabbett on 10/31/2007 for Meatingplace.com

A new report by the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research suggests limiting intake of red meat and avoiding processed meat as one of ten recommendations to reduce cancer risk.

The report, which updates the group's 1997 findings and reviewed over 7,000 studies, said it found that both red meat (defined as beef, pork, lamb and goat) and processed meat (defined as meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting or chemical preservatives) increased risk of colorectal cancer if eaten in large quantities.

It cautioned people who eat red meat to consume less than 500 grams (18 ounces) of cooked red meat a week and that they consume "very little, if any" processed meat, such as bacon, ham, sausage and lunchmeat.

"The panel emphasizes that this overall recommendation is not for diets containing no red meat or diets containing no foods of animal origin," the report said, noting that meat can be a valuable source of protein, iron, zinc and vitamin B12.

"An integrated approach to the evidence also shows that many foods of animal origin are nourishing and healthy if consumed in modest amounts," it said.

The report pointed to excess body fat as a major cancer risk and noted that, "diets with high levels of animal fats are often relatively high in energy, increasing the risk of weight gain." It linked excess body fat to cancers of the esophagus, pancreas, colon and rectum, endometrium and kidney, along with breast cancer in post-menopausal women.

To view the entire report, click here.

Industry response

The American Meat Institute (AMI) said the study's meat intake recommendations, "reflect WCRF's well-known anti-meat bias and should be met with skepticism because they oversimplify the complex issue of cancer, are not supported by the data and defy common sense."

"Given the complexities and conflicting research findings, it is inconceivable that WCRF could draw definitive conclusions and make such precise recommendations about specific food categories," said AMI Foundation Vice President of Scientific Affairs Randy Huffman, noting the causes of cancer involve factors like genetics, the environment, lifestyle and a host of other issues.

AMI also disputed the report's recommendations on processed meats. "Our own systematic review of the literature by independent epidemiologists has documented that 15 of 16 comparisons regarding processed meat and colorectal cancer were not statistically significant," said Huffman.

Harvard data

Huffman also questioned why WCRF didn't take into account a 2004 Harvard School of Public Health analysis that concluded that red meat and processed meat were not associated with colon cancer.

He said the Harvard study, involving 725,000 men and women, was presented at the 2004 American Association for Cancer Research Conference in abstract form but never has been published in its entirety.

Huffman called the Harvard paper, Meat and fat intake and colorectal cancer risk: A pooled analysis of 14 prospective studies, the largest study ever done on red meat and colon cancer. He said lawmakers are now asking Harvard why the study has not been published, given its completion three years ago and its federal funding.

The point is, again, how much can we trust epi studies? We can design a study to say almost anything; whether we can get it published is another issue. Should you refute a published study with an unpublished study? Or is it, as they imply, refuting a p.c. study with a politically blocked study?

It could happen here?

Think I wasn't accurate about the UK being a little unlucky? Well, turns out their most recent FMD problem could happen here, too.

Just so you know. I mean, if I'm going to stay up at night worrying, why shouldn't you?

Unlucky? Unlikely

Somebody asked Slate.com why British cattle get so many diseases.

Ummm . . .

Let's talk about information bias. To be specific, diagnostic bias and reporting bias. The UK has a fantastic diagnostic service. The UK also reports any diseases it finds. Therefore, the UK reports a lot of disease outbreaks. In sub-Saharan Africa, which has 75% of the world's disease burden according to a recent lecture I attended, there is no money for diagnostic services, so even strict reporting (which is unlikely) wouldn't lead to a lot of outbreak reports. Ditto for Southeast Asia -- diagnostics are lacking and reporting is low. China, on the other hand, probably has good diagnostic services; they don't report many outbreaks because they choose not to report what they find.

The reporting bias is an important point. On Promed, outbreaks in some countries are reported by the OIE or the country involved; outbreaks in other countries are reported by field workers or locals. If we only consider outbreaks in countries where reporting is through official channels, those (few) countries will look disease-ridden compared to the rest.

Okay, there may be some luck (or lack) involved in the case of the UK. I'm not sure Heathrow is a bigger international hub than Schipol or LAX. I'm not sure the UK has a bigger smuggling problem. They just got unlucky with FMD.

In the case of BSE, though, we got lucky that it happened in the UK. They diagnosed it (and fixed it) faster than most countries could have. Think SARS or avian influenza, but with no obvious animal link -- how long would it have taken Thailand to figure it out or China to tell us about it?

Zoonotic diseases? From livestock? You're kidding, right?

This is a serious problem; urban agriculture is a growing segment of the livestock industry in many low-income countries with large, sprawling cities. Especially with the lack of good water treatment facilities or sewage control -- the sewers were one of the biggest gains in public health in human history, so what happens if we don't have them and we have all sorts of livestock spreading manure in our cities? In traditional systems, we didn't have this problem because animals were kept out on ranges. Of course, the animal caretakers had issues to deal with . . . and still do . . . but now consumers are at risk.

This doesn't even address the issue of free-ranging animals in urban areas (cattle in India, poultry and small ruminants in many other areas). They could spread disease directly, as well as from their waste. No solutions from me, sorry -- this is a sticky issue that needs a lot of attention.

FAO sees disease threat from increase global meat production

By Janie Gabbett on 9/18/2007 for Meatingplace.com

Increase global meat and poultry production to meet escalating demand has pushed production closer to urban areas, increasing the risk of animal to human disease transmission, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"The risk of disease transmission from animals to humans will increase in the future due to human and livestock population growth, dynamic changes in livestock production, the emergence of worldwide agro-food networks and a significant increase in the mobility of people and goods," FAO said in a policy brief titled "Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks."

It warned the risk of pathogen transfer is increased by: animal movement; the concentration of confined animals; and the waste produced by large animal houses.

With global pig and poultry production growing the fastest, the FAO cited a trend towards industrialized livestock production replacing traditional systems in developing countries, most notably in Asia, South American and parts of Africa.

It also raised concerns that most chickens and turkeys in industrialized nations are now produced in houses with 15,000 to 50,000 birds and that both poultry and pig production rely on significant animal movement.

The FAO called on meat producers to: apply basic biosecurity measures, refrain from building production sites too close to human settlements or wild bird populations, regularly clean and disinfect farms, control staff and vehicles movement and train employees in biosecurity.

A long-overdue study

What are the international trade barriers to US beef, and how do they effect the industry?

Are you kidding? Haven't they done this before now?!?! For all I know, of course, this is just a duplication of somebody's thesis that never got read . . .

ITC to investigate international trade barriers on U.S. beef

By Tom Johnston on 9/17/2007 for Meatingplace.com

The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Friday it launched a probe into the effects of international trade restrictions on U.S. beef.

The ITC investigation follows a request by the Senate's Finance Committee, which lamented the economic impact of restrictions by Japan and South Korea on the U.S. beef industry. (See Senator wants audit of Asian barriers on U.S. beef on Meatingplace.com, Aug. 8, 2007.)

The commission said it would provide an overview of the U.S. and global markets for beef, as well as information on animal health, sanitary, and food safety measures facing U.S. and other major beef exporters. It will also will render information on other barriers to U.S. beef exports in major foreign markets, including high tariffs, quotas and import licensing and distribution systems, as well as analyze their economic effects.

The ITC is slated to submit its report to the Senate's Finance Committee on June 6, 2008. It will hold a public hearing related to the investigation at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 15, 2007. Requests to appear should be filed with the Secretary, United States International Trade Commission, 500 E Street SW, Washington, D.C. 20436, by 5:15 p.m. Oct. 18.

Not again!

British farmers can't catch a break. Also, the government needs to start contacting people, if this article is anything to go by.

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:44:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: ProMED-mail <promed@promed.isid.harvard.edu>
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Foot & mouth disease, bovine - UK (England) (21): new, conf

FOOT & MOUTH DISEASE, BOVINE - UK (ENGLAND) (21): NEW, CONFIRMED
******************************

**********************
A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.promedmail.org>
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Source: BBC News [edited]
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/6990913.stm>


New foot-and-mouth case confirmed
- ---------------------------------
A new case of foot-and-mouth disease [FMD] has been confirmed in the
same county as the UK's last outbreak.

The government has set up a 10km (6.2 mile) control zone centred on
the affected farm near Egham, Surrey, and a pre-emptive slaughter has
been ordered.

A national movement ban has been put in place to prevent the disease
spreading from Milton Park Farm, Stroude Road.

A report into the August [2007] outbreak blamed a leaking pipe at the
Pirbright animal research site in Surrey.

The latest outbreak comes just days after the government declared
Surrey to be FMD free.

Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers' Union, said it was
a "disaster" for British agriculture.

"The industry will be devastated that all the hard work it has put in
to eradicate the outbreaks of 3 Aug and 8 Aug 2007 when the whole
industry was completely locked up for a long time," he said.

Dr Reynolds, said the control zone was put in place swiftly because
"containment and eradication of FMD is our top priority".

She urged farmers to remain vigilant and report any suspicions.

The EU has halted plans to lift the export ban on livestock products
from the area around the original outbreak.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to chair a meeting of the Cobra
emergency committee at 1700 BST (1600 GMT).

A farmer at Stroude Farm, Stroude Road, said he had heard nothing of the news.

He said: "This has made me go all cold. It was only Monday [10 Sep
2007] that they opened up the country after the last time.

"I can't believe it's happening again. I have heard nothing about it.
You'd think they'd let us know."

The Cobra meeting will take place once the government has received the results.

The control zone was set up around the suspected outbreak at 0935 BST.

Earlier in the summer, 2 farms tested positive for the disease but
the all-clear has since been given.

FMD was confirmed in a herd of cattle at Woolford Farm in Surrey on 3 Aug 2007.

A 2nd case, at a farm nearby, was confirmed on 7 Aug 2007.

A report into the previous outbreak found it was probably caused by
leaking drains, heavy rain and building work at the Pirbright site, 4
miles from where the disease was originally found.

But the Health and Safety Executive said it was not clear which of
the 2 labs which share the site - Merial, a private pharmaceutical
company, and the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) - were responsible.

- --
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall

[ProMED-mail would like to thank Chris Griot for submitting the
original alert that this outbreak was identified, shortly before the
laboratory confirmation was received. - Mod.MPP]

[DEFRA's press release on the suspected outbreak in Wegham (seemingly
confirmed in the meantime) is available at
<http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/latest/2007/animal-0912.htm>.

The declaration of a control zone, including a map, is available at
<http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/fmd/pdf/declaration-tcz120907-2.pdf>.

Details on the affected holding, number, species and age of the
animals involved, proximity to other animal holdings, the estimated
age of the erosions (if observed) and the suspected route(s) of
introduction, are anticipated. If in case clinical symptoms have been
observed now, the virus may have been circulating on the premises for
some time, up to several weeks. Unravelling the source and route of
the pathogen's introduction are crucial for the decisions on the due
steps which may be needed to contain the outbreak and subsequently
regain the UK's freedom of FMD. The earlier such information becomes
available, the earlier efficient measures may be applied, free
movement of animals of susceptible species within the UK is
reinstituted and UK's international trade in animals and their
products may be resumed. - Mod. AS].

Why does everyone hate animal industry?

Okay, not everyone -- just the radicals. The ones who want to convince us that animals are worse for global warming than SUV's. Yes, scientifically, that is correct -- feedlots contribute more to greenhouse gas production than autos (at least, if we only count the driving -- I wonder about production and transport of autos and fuel, mining, the steel industry, etc.). That is a problem in our livestock industry.

Is veganism the answer? I don't think so. Before I'm written off as a carnivore apologist: I was a vegetarian for 4 years, and I rarely eat meat. My point is the difference between complete abstinence and sensible moderation: I eat meat (and dairy products, and eggs) in small amounts from local, mostly organic, farms. Local being upstate NY, these farms are in an appropriate place (I'd probably eat less dairy if the only local source was a mega-farm in AZ, for instance), more appropriate, in fact, than most organic produce. In other areas, there is no other agriculture option -- what do you expect the people of Karamoja, for example, to do with their land? It's only appropriate for livestock. The problem comes more from large feedlots full of corn-fed cattle being turned into triple cheeseburgers for consumers that live thousands of miles away. That system is the problem -- producing enough meat to feed the American appetite for it has led to an environmentally draining, non-sustainable industry standard.

There is a good lesson here: eat less meat. As a matter of fact, Al Gore's official response to this criticism is along the lines of 'I told people to eat less meat.'

I'm a little more peeved at this than I normally would be because of a conversation last night. Several intelligent, educated friends tried to claim that dairy was just bad for a person. I know the one person has no background in nutrition and gets information from misleading and plain wrong internet sources. The other was just railing against fat and environmental issues, and claimed that, since you couldn't expect people to be sensible about buying local, sustainable dairy products, we should ban all cheese as an environment-killing weapon of mass hunger. Sorry, but no. Eat less. Eat responsibly. Don't eat at all if you don't want to. But don't blame me for my choice to support (and work for) appropriate livestock production.

Any relation to what's going on in the UK?

The USDA is going to start up their committee on foreign animal diseases (again). Wait, why did we stop having one? Anyways, anybody think there's a relationship between this and the FMD outbreak in Pirbright?