And another little tidbit.......
HORSE MEAT GOES UNTESTED DESPITE W. NILE OUTBREAK
Experts differ on virus' ability to be passed to others
Denver Post, Diedtra Henderson, October 13, 2003
Gardner - Tom Zieber ensures that the horse meat fed to wolves at the
Mission: Wolf refuge is free of the euthanasia drugs that, in the past, left
two wolves in comas.
But as the nation reels from its worst outbreak of West Nile, a virus that
struck Colorado horses as easily as it did humans, there's no guarantee the
meat is free of that scourge.
Not at Colorado's Mission: Wolf.
Not in European and Japanese butcher shops that offer American horse meat to
connoisseurs who covet the low-fat meat and recoil at the risk that mad cow
lingers in Europe.
Not at wild animal parks across the nation, including the Denver Zoo, that
feed meat-eaters fresh, frozen horse meat that's been ground and laced with
vitamins - but never tested for West Nile.
At least 594 horses in Colorado were infected with West Nile this year.
Across the nation, at least 2,767 horses were infected in 38 states. The
numbers are thought to be underestimates, since owners have balked at paying
for diagnostic tests.
Each year, 42,000 to 62,000 pounds of American horse meat head to
international markets. Another 4 million pounds a year are processed for
domestic use by Central Nebraska Packing in North Platte, Neb., which
supplies horse meat to 85 percent of the nation's zoos.
Not a single pound is tested for West Nile.
Max Coats, assistant deputy director for animal health programs at Texas
Animal Health Commission, says the risk that humans will contract the virus
from infected horse meat is not high.
"The horse is an accidental host for West Nile. They can't generate enough
viremia to infect a mosquito," he said.
Since last spring, however, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have
visually examined horses slated for slaughter at Beltex Corp. and Dallas
Crown Inc., the two remaining American slaughterhouses that handle horse
meat for human consumption.
The veterinarians are on the alert for drunken, uncoordinated movements,
listlessness, partial paralysis and "downer" horses that arrive for
slaughter already dead.
When a horse meets those criteria and is rejected for slaughter, another arm
of the USDA, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, is to be
alerted. That hasn't yet happened since the directive was issued in April,
said Steven Cohen, senior press officer for USDA's Food Safety and
Inspection Service.
But visual inspection runs the risk of missing 9 out of 10 West
Nile-infected horses because the majority show no signs of sickness. And
parts of the horse - such as the brain - carry enough virus to potentially
spread infection.
So says a Colorado State University researcher who has experimentally
infected a Noah's Ark of animals to determine which give and take West Nile
from the mosquitoes that spread the disease.
Although spreading West Nile through diet is possible, the lion's share of
infections in the veterinary realm are due to bites from tainted mosquitoes,
said Rich Bowen, a professor of biomedical sciences at CSU.
Still, "the assumption is it's all mosquito-borne. Maybe it's not," Bowen
said.
The USDA stands by its practices. "According to APHIS, there is no evidence
of any animal becoming infected through meat," Cohen said.
A horse is a dead-end host for West Nile, said Lloyd Woodward, general
manager of Central Nebraska Packing, which also doesn't test for West Nile.
"In other words, it's not passed on from the horses to humans, from the
horse to any other thing."
But animals can eat their way into a West Nile infection, Bowen and other
researchers confirmed. Feed a house cat a mouse infected with West Nile and
the cat becomes infected. Same goes for dogs, raptors and farm-raised
alligators.
It's unclear whether all West Nile-tainted meat is equal.
Bowen and another researcher, Mike Bunning, infected alligators in the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Fort Collins lab by needle stick
and by feeding them tainted mice.
Mice, like horses, carry high West Nile virus loads in their brains. A
single tainted mouse carries a massive West Nile wallop. Ounce for ounce, a
massive horse brain could deliver a similarly sized dose of West Nile, Bowen
said.
No one's done that experiment. And a number of subtleties can skew West Nile
levels - more of the virus lingers in frozen horse meat, less in
refrigerated meat, Bunning said. West Nile disappears when meat is cooked.
"It's a pretty labile little virus. Any kind of cooking, even rare cooking,
would destroy the virus," Bowen said.
At Mission: Wolf, Zieber worries about the risk of West Nile. Donated elk,
for instance, are tested for chronic wasting disease. For now, he has little
option other than having horse owners sign release forms.
"We have to go on the owner's word."
HORSE MEAT GOES UNTESTED DESPITE W. NILE OUTBREAK
Experts differ on virus' ability to be passed to others
Denver Post, Diedtra Henderson, October 13, 2003
Gardner - Tom Zieber ensures that the horse meat fed to wolves at the
Mission: Wolf refuge is free of the euthanasia drugs that, in the past, left
two wolves in comas.
But as the nation reels from its worst outbreak of West Nile, a virus that
struck Colorado horses as easily as it did humans, there's no guarantee the
meat is free of that scourge.
Not at Colorado's Mission: Wolf.
Not in European and Japanese butcher shops that offer American horse meat to
connoisseurs who covet the low-fat meat and recoil at the risk that mad cow
lingers in Europe.
Not at wild animal parks across the nation, including the Denver Zoo, that
feed meat-eaters fresh, frozen horse meat that's been ground and laced with
vitamins - but never tested for West Nile.
At least 594 horses in Colorado were infected with West Nile this year.
Across the nation, at least 2,767 horses were infected in 38 states. The
numbers are thought to be underestimates, since owners have balked at paying
for diagnostic tests.
Each year, 42,000 to 62,000 pounds of American horse meat head to
international markets. Another 4 million pounds a year are processed for
domestic use by Central Nebraska Packing in North Platte, Neb., which
supplies horse meat to 85 percent of the nation's zoos.
Not a single pound is tested for West Nile.
Max Coats, assistant deputy director for animal health programs at Texas
Animal Health Commission, says the risk that humans will contract the virus
from infected horse meat is not high.
"The horse is an accidental host for West Nile. They can't generate enough
viremia to infect a mosquito," he said.
Since last spring, however, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have
visually examined horses slated for slaughter at Beltex Corp. and Dallas
Crown Inc., the two remaining American slaughterhouses that handle horse
meat for human consumption.
The veterinarians are on the alert for drunken, uncoordinated movements,
listlessness, partial paralysis and "downer" horses that arrive for
slaughter already dead.
When a horse meets those criteria and is rejected for slaughter, another arm
of the USDA, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, is to be
alerted. That hasn't yet happened since the directive was issued in April,
said Steven Cohen, senior press officer for USDA's Food Safety and
Inspection Service.
But visual inspection runs the risk of missing 9 out of 10 West
Nile-infected horses because the majority show no signs of sickness. And
parts of the horse - such as the brain - carry enough virus to potentially
spread infection.
So says a Colorado State University researcher who has experimentally
infected a Noah's Ark of animals to determine which give and take West Nile
from the mosquitoes that spread the disease.
Although spreading West Nile through diet is possible, the lion's share of
infections in the veterinary realm are due to bites from tainted mosquitoes,
said Rich Bowen, a professor of biomedical sciences at CSU.
Still, "the assumption is it's all mosquito-borne. Maybe it's not," Bowen
said.
The USDA stands by its practices. "According to APHIS, there is no evidence
of any animal becoming infected through meat," Cohen said.
A horse is a dead-end host for West Nile, said Lloyd Woodward, general
manager of Central Nebraska Packing, which also doesn't test for West Nile.
"In other words, it's not passed on from the horses to humans, from the
horse to any other thing."
But animals can eat their way into a West Nile infection, Bowen and other
researchers confirmed. Feed a house cat a mouse infected with West Nile and
the cat becomes infected. Same goes for dogs, raptors and farm-raised
alligators.
It's unclear whether all West Nile-tainted meat is equal.
Bowen and another researcher, Mike Bunning, infected alligators in the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Fort Collins lab by needle stick
and by feeding them tainted mice.
Mice, like horses, carry high West Nile virus loads in their brains. A
single tainted mouse carries a massive West Nile wallop. Ounce for ounce, a
massive horse brain could deliver a similarly sized dose of West Nile, Bowen
said.
No one's done that experiment. And a number of subtleties can skew West Nile
levels - more of the virus lingers in frozen horse meat, less in
refrigerated meat, Bunning said. West Nile disappears when meat is cooked.
"It's a pretty labile little virus. Any kind of cooking, even rare cooking,
would destroy the virus," Bowen said.
At Mission: Wolf, Zieber worries about the risk of West Nile. Donated elk,
for instance, are tested for chronic wasting disease. For now, he has little
option other than having horse owners sign release forms.
"We have to go on the owner's word."
or whatever the heck that was, that we are "allowed" to eat.
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