Mad cows and gullible people

Issues like mad cow disease (BSE) and avian flu have a delightfully simple and frightening aspect to them, which tends to override to complexities of the reality.
General ignorance of the issues is a boon to regulators who are merely concerned with preserving markets, with health a secondary issue.
The fact is, the food authorities around the world know there is little risk of human contamination from normal farming practices.
The real risks, particularly with avian flu are things regulators and farmers can’t control, like the movement of disease carriers, wild birds.
Where outbreaks of these diseases have affected humans there is invariably close living conditions with humans and animals, and a mixture of animals at that.
The upshot, once the known risk factors like feed contamination are dealt with, is that much of the rest is simply window dressing for a gullible public.
There are, no doubt, still serious consequences if a human of strain bird flu gets out. But it is fairly slim, as the peasant farmers most susceptible aren’t exactly note travelers.
Even less of a concern is mad cow disease rampaging through the community. For a start the diseased tissue needs to be ingested, and in large quantities at that.
Even cattle cannot simple pass the disease from one to the other.
Unfortunately, for those of us who happen to enjoy offal, those morsels might be seen less and less on the menu – just for safety sake.

Quarantine
In the Fraser Valley, in BC Canada, poultry flocks have been under threat twice in the past few years. Each time poultry farms within a certain radius of a ‘find’ have been quarantined and quite properly inspected for disease.
The first time many thousands of birds were unnecessarily destroyed. The second outbreak resulted in fewer birds destroyed, but there was still no goo reason beyond public perception – optics.
Poultry farms in the area are now under a strict bio-safety regime, which includes limiting general access to the properties and spraying tires and undersides of vehicles with disinfectants as they enter properties.
It all looks very efficient, but it doesn’t stop the wild birds, which don’t drive or use the entry gates. Those wild birds are the potential carriers of the various diseases.
The farmers certainly don’t entertain risk taking when it comes to their livelihood. But they are realistic about how they manage their businesses.
If the public wants to see good bio-safety practices then so be it. Monitoring flocks, or herds for that matter, for good health and yield is standard practice and they best way they have of ensuring disease free product.
But the public can’t see what happens in those barns, what is going on behind the scenes. The public don’t see the dairy farmer inspecting every animal prior to milking, looking for signs of any potential illness which might affect their product, and thus their income.
Likewise they don’t see the poultry farmers working systematically through their enormous barns every day, removing birds which show any abnormal signs.
The fact is, in the factory farming so common today, one small slip up can result in many thousands of dollars loss to a farm operator.
You can bet your farmers are vigilant. The rest is just window dressing, but if the cost isn’t too great, and it makes the public feel comfortable, that is no great burden.