Air December 31, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. December 31st! I don't think anyone would have predicted the roller coast ride of events that the past 365 days has brought us. It never ceases to amaze me how the simple passage of one day to another - in this case December 31st to January 1st can cause such commostion. To nature, it is a seamless transition - no different than the passing of any other day to another. But we humans have the need to mark celebrations. To have mile posts to mark the passage of time, events and ourselves. And so at midnight tonight we raise a ruckus, hit the reset button on our calendars, and start it all over again.

A lot of things I had planned to say today were changed late last Monday afternoon when the news broke that a cow had tested positive for Mad Cow or BSE. I don't like the term mad cow, it isn't very descriptive of the condition and raises too much unwarranted panic. BSE or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, along with scrapie in sheep and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, belong to a family of diseases known as TSEs or transmissable spongiform encephalopathies .... and that's the last time I'm saying that word! BSE was discovered in Great Britian in 1986. The United States has been testing cattle since 1990. The test isn't an easy one and is done on the brain and spinal cord of the animal. The test is neither easy nor quick. It is usually performed on samples obtained upon slaughter. BSE is transmitted when a small amount of infected brain or spinal cord material is ingested. Therefore, meat protein has been banned from cattle feed in the United States since 1997. The causative agent for BSE has not been determined as of yet but it is smaller than any known virus. It may be an unknown virus, it could be an abnormal protein it could be an incomplete virus. Whatever it is it has a very long incubation period and is very resistant to heat. Animals under the age of three rarely exhibit BSE symptoms and animals under the age of two, such as most beef slaughter animals, aren't even tested. This single US case poses a nearly negligible health risk. It's long term impact on the cattle markets and overseas sales is yet to be fully known, but it is crippling the markets at this time. But the critical news for consumers is that I personally have no hesitation to continue to eat beef!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003, wishing everyone a happy new year!

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