The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFahterhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

Breaking Canadian news: Another case of Mad Cow Disease

This is happening just as the United States was going to open up its border to allow importation of cattle from Canada (it's been closed for about 17 months now), but now maybe that doesn't sound like such a good idea after all...

If you're thinking "oh, two cases in millions of cattle, what's the problem?" you probably just aren't aware of how frightening and dangerous BSE really is. So here are a few facts to ponder:

• BSE in the brain affects the brain and spinal cord of cattle. Lesions are characterized by sponge-like changes visible with an ordinary microscope. The agent is highly stable, resisting freezing, drying and heating at normal cooking temperatures, even those used for pasteurization and sterilization.
• Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is one of a class of what are called Transmittable Spongiform Encephalophathies (TSEs), and when humans contract it, it's called classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
• Classic CJD is a human disease characterized by progressive dementia, leading to death. The disease may start with confusion or mental symptoms. Other symptoms are difficulty moving and muscle jerks. More and more signs and symptoms of brain damage and movement disorder follow until the patient goes into a coma and dies.
• Evidence suggests that it might take between 10 to 40 years to get sick with classic CJD once abnormal proteins have begun to develop. Classic CJD almost always occurs in people over 50 years old. Once someone gets classic CJD, they may live for 6 to 12 months.
• Variant CJD is a disease in humans that has been linked to ingesting meat infected with the prion that causes mad cow disease (BSE). Variant CJD tends to occur in younger people (average age 29 rather than 65 for classic CJD) and has slightly different symptoms than classic CJD.

And now after wreaking unbelievable havoc on the British, then European cattle market, BSE is slowly but surely making its way here, to North America. And it can take ten years to diagnose someone who has been infected by bad meat, gelatin products, vaccines, or even cosmetics. This means that it's impossible to control an outbreak if it does occur in a slaughterhouse or packing plant (and in case you're wondering, brain and spinal matter does end up on your meat in a slaughterhouse by virtue of the way that cattle are killed and butchered).

For my part, this just reinforces why I'm a vegetarian, but for you, does this make you think twice about eating beef?

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