BUSH COURTS THE HUNTING/FISHING LOBBY

While his national security adviser sat in front of the 9/11 commission to argue that there was no mention of attacks on the U.S. in the 8/6/2001 memo about attacks on the U.S., our president shamelessly pandered to his far right, the "conservationists" who also happen to be gun lovers - folks like Ducks Unlimited, Quai Unlimited, the Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association. The Guardian (er, "Guardian Unlimited") mentions that another guest, the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance proudly "provides direct lobbying and grassroots coalition support to protect and advance the rights of hunters, fishermen, trappers and scientific wildlife management professionals." What I want to know is, how come conservatives are so adamant about no "special rights" for homosexuals, but when it comes to another minority - one that's demonstrably dangerous to the life and limb of ordinary citizens - they're willing to push as hard as they can for... special rights? How does that work?

PREGNANT WOMEN EATING TOO MUCH FISH

That's USA Today's headline. It's no longer an abstract theory: A new EPA study says that 300,000 to 600,000 babies born in 2000 got "unacceptable" levels of methyl mercury from their mothers eating "a diet rich in fish," potentially dooming them to "developmental problems and difficulties with visual and motor integration." The study's author says it emphasizes "the importance of paying attention to the advisories" - you know, the convoluted instructions about which fish you can have more than once a week, or once a month, and which will kill you straight out, etc. yet being sure you eat enough fish to get those fantastical health benefits. I thought veganism was the one where you had to be constantly paying attention to what you ate.

FIRST SIGNS OF BSE IN SHEEP

"Scientists have detected the first signs that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) may have crossed into sheep in a study that is likely to rekindle anxieties over the safety of lamb and mutton. One of three tests used to determine whether sheep that had seemingly died from scrapie were in fact infected with BSE (also known as "mad cow" disease) has produced positive results," reports the Independent. Oh no! But wait: "Scientific experts who carried out the tests have nevertheless concluded that the case "could not be considered to be" BSE, although they have not ruled out the possibility that this is the first case of BSE disease in sheep. 'Some characteristics [of the test] were similar to experimental BSE in sheep and also to [an] experimental strain of sheep scrapie.'" Phew! But wait: "Experiments suggest that BSE could be easily transmitted to sheep, and it could, like scrapie, be passed down the generations. This would mean that BSE could still be infecting the national flock today, more than a decade after meat and bonemeal was banned."

SENATORS: PROBE RACETRACK CLUSTER

"New Jersey's senators, Corzine and Lautenberg, are urging federal scientists to determine whether eating mad cow-tainted meat could have caused a cluster of deaths from the fatal, brain-destroying disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease among people linked to the defunct Garden State Racetrack." Skarbek seems to have picked up another couple of confirmed CJD cases after the NYT Magazine piece; she "has documented 13 deaths among residents of New Jersey and nearby states since 1995, all listed as due to classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease on their death certificates, in track workers and patrons presumed to have eaten at the track's restaurant. Another six deaths also appear to fit the pattern," but they're awaiting confirmation either of the cause of death or the racetrack connection. So it looks like according to Skarbek, we have 13 definites, 19 probables for a one-in-a-million disease.

NO MORE BULLS*** IN BARCELONA

Nearly 250,000 people signed a petition calling for the abolition of bullfighting in Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital. The BBC reports that 21 councillors voted in favour, 15 against, with two abstentions. The ban still could theoretically be vetoed, and "traditionalists" are wringing their hands and stomping their feet, but it looks like the tide has really turned in this town, which had staged the third most bullfights of any city, killing 100 bulls a year. On to Madrid and Seville, number one and two, next. Either way, Beijing ain't gonna be catching up - it has "given up its drive to host a bullfighting performance in Asia's biggest bull ring. The bullring has a seating capacity of 3,000 and is intended to open this May. However, project officials are now consulting with investment companies about converting the area into a multifaceted entertainment facility. Many people have argued that bullfighting is a cruel form of entertainment, which will not only injures and kills bulls but also has the potential to tarnish Beijing's-and China's-image." Not if you keep that crap out, it doesn't.

NEWS FLASH: VEGANISM LOWERS WEIGHT

Amazing that they had to study 38,000 men and women aged 20 to 97 to confirm this, they found that "fish-eaters, vegetarians and especially vegans had lower Body Mass Index than meat-eaters." What were the greatest contributors to the meat-eaters' heaviness? "High protein and low fibre intakes," according to Nature. (via Vegan Porn) But at least those who are overdoing the meat are cutting back on the dreaded carbs, right? Oh, except that "low-carb dieters eat too many carbs!" Yes, "adults who are reducing their carb intakes are still eating about 128 grams of refined carbohydrates a day, the study found. That compares with the estimated 20 to 50 grams of carbs per day recommended by some low-carb diets." Hmmm, so what do you get when you eat not enoug fiber, too much protein, and too many carbs? Fat, it would seem.

HUNTING & ETHICS = OIL & WATER

The stories keep rolling in of hunters who feel they're above the rules - and why not? Their concept of "sportsmanship" is a one-to-one combat in which only their side gets a weapon or advance notice. I usually ignore them, but sometimes there are clusters of stories or particularly egregious examples. Here's a collection of poaching convictions and investigations in Utah, for example, and here's a couple guys who don't know when to stop cheating: "Gary Roger Motarie, 40, is charged with possession of unlawfully taken wildlife, a felony, and 16 misdemeanors: five counts of hunting without a license, five of improperly transferring a license and five of hunting while revoked, and one count of possession of an unlawfully taken black bear." But wait, there's more: "At the time of this alleged incident, Motarie's game privileges already had been suspended for 20 years for game violations in Lewis and Clark County, where he had illegally shot a trophy elk -- then had his hometown newspaper, the Western Breeze, run a photo of him with the animal... He also is serving two six-year suspended sentences, levied in January in Glacier County, for intimidating and tampering with a witness in that case." What a guy, what a scholar of Nugentism. Another hunting genius, Paul A. Garrison, of St. Xavier (MT), pleaded guilty to hunting coyote from an aircraft without a permit. He was found out when the plane he was hunting from crashed, leaving him with broken bones, and the plane's pilot dead.

PRO-LIFE PARENTS ABUSE THEIR CHILDREN

How come we never see that headline, huh? No, I'm not just being snarky - this is a legit journalistic quesion. Why is it that when two people who claim to be vegan raise their kids that way and there's some problem with their nutrition, the headline tars all vegan parents, either by using the construction above, or at the very least, making sure the parents' veganism is the main point of the story (usually in the headline and the lede)? But when it's a situation such as yesterday's, where "a couple with 16 children allegedly abused four of them, sometimes keeping them locked in the basement with a urinating dog," where "the children were allowed to eat only mayonnaise or butter sandwiches, while their parents often dined on meals of steak or pork chops, vegetables and potatoes," where "a 13-year-old boy who is a diabetic often had blood sugar levels at dangerously low levels because food was withheld from him," the parents' decision to HAVE 16 FREAKING KIDS is not deemed central enough to the story to merit a mention before the tenth paragraph? Namely, "We love children," [Dad] told the newspaper about why he and his wife have 16. "We are also pro-life."Well, their concept of "love" is obviously off a bit, so we're left with the pro-life thing. "The boys have for years sneaked out of the house at night to steal food from a nearby gas station. Two boys were arrested in 2003 for stealing toiletries." So these good Christians have turned their children into criminals through their insistence on raising them in this cockamamie way? You'd think there would be a little more probing on that.

Yes, yes, I undersand that veganism is relevant in a story where feeding practices may have harmed a child. Got it. But surely having the child in the first place, after you've already had and abused 12 others, is much more relevant. Without the child being born, there's no one there to be harmed. It really makes one wonder how many of the other parents of our 900,000 abused or neglected children are vegan, and how many are pro-"life."

WAITER, THERE'S COW ANUS IN MY FOOD!

Heh. April Fool's! Your trusty USDA wouldn't really go so far as to include cow anuses and rectums in your food, would it? Well, if you believe that, you're the real April fool, because aside from how, well, unappealing the concept is, it's also of dubious safety, and yet the USDA needs to be prodded to omit these materials from human food. Here's where you can go to do so. (Maybe first thing tomorrow, so they know you're serious.)

VEGAN VIXENS

Considering the proximity to April Fool's day, I went through this site with a fine-tooth comb because it seems like it could easily be a joke. But my analysis says it's for real (OK, maybe that wasn't the only reason I went through it with a fine-tooth comb...) - it's the Vegan Vixen Show, apparently a bunch of models who are trying to parlay a Web site into an actual broadcast opportunity. Don't know if they'll succeed, but, well, at least they're vegan. The personal pages range from long, believable explanations of the women's vegan roots (including especially that of the main vixen, "Sky Valencia," who says she quit her agency rather than wear fur) to pages where, well, they believe a picture's worth 1000 words. Sky says, "We wanted to appeal to the male audience, the hunters, the dogfighters, the burger eaters - you know, the guys who love Stuff and Low Rider magazine as well as Jack Ass and Howard Stern." OK, good luck! (via - where else? - Vegan Porn)

"99.9 % COMPLIANCE" ASSERTION TORPEDOED

You'll recall that I've been asking for a while to see the documentation that would support that "99.9% compliance" claim for feed producers vis-a-vis animal protein contamination? Turns out even if I'd seen the papers, they would have just said "We promise we're doing perfectly, Signed, Your Trustworthy Feed Producer." That's the only thing that number's based on. You see, 56 percent of the feed-handling companies have not been inspected since Dec. 31, 2002. This comes up in a story about California's numbers (the state's doing better than the average, with only 44% uninspected last year), which points out that this violates "regulations calling for annual checks - a key brick in the U.S. firewall against mad cow disease" and adds: "Those are among the reasons the General Accounting Office has launched its third investigation in four years into the FDA's inspection methods.

Consumers Union spokesman Michael Hanson puts it all succinctly: "Their claim to such stunning success doesn't make any sense if you think about it. They have all these businesses that haven't been inspected and so the FDA says, 'We don't have any evidence that they're out of compliance, so we'll count them as following the rules.' And on top of that, they're relying on feed companies to self-report."

OUR STRIP-MALL BSE TEST LAB NOT SECURE?

So I'm reading along... "The U.S. government's main laboratory for testing mad cow disease, located in an Iowa strip mall, is not secure enough to store dangerous pathogens like the brain-wasting disease, USDA..." Hang on. Excuse me? The sole spot we've been counting on to ensure the safety of the entire country as well as several crucial industries... is a storefront in a strip mall? "The building housing the strip mall is close to other commercial businesses and has limited security at the entry and exit points," said a report by the USDA'S Office of Inspector General, which conducts independent audits and investigations of USDA programs. Well, yeah. Also, the Dunkin Donuts next door might lead some people to think we don't take actual BSE testing all that freakin' seriously. This article adds that "Investigators repeated their concern that scientists and students were allowed "unlimited access" to the laboratory without the USDA requiring background checks." But really, man. It's the strip-mall thing. Maybe that's why the USDA suddenly announced seven new testing facilities at big-name universities. Also possibly related - Mad Cow Blamed For Ames Plant Closing, as strip-mall BSE testing professionals move to college towns so they can get an education while doing their job.

UPDATE 3/31: Mad cow samples removed from Ames laboratory, reports the local Ames paper. Very odd. Why were samples there if they shouldn't be, and why do they need to be "removed" all of a sudden? And where exactly are these particular samples going to? Previously, "Officials of the animal and plant inspection service had stated that 'all pathogens of consequence had been removed,' but investigators learned later from a laboratory official that a mad cow tissue sample remained. Hmmmm. The more cynical among us might wonder if there were samples that could be "troublesome" which may wind up getting "misplaced" en route. Also, ya gotta love this description of our strip-mall BSE lab: "The lab moved to the site in 1973 and was intended to be temporary." Well, see, now it's gone, so it was temporary. I mean, it was only there 31 freakin' years...

ANOTHER HUNTER SUFFERING MORAL DRIFT

As I've pointed out, one of the problems with hunting is that basing your hobby around killing defenseless beings can rub off on a guy, leading other transgressions, from minor legal ones to the the wrong beings getting killed. Sometimes the deaths are accidental. Other times it seems a little more complicated. John McNaughton "Mack" English, 26, collected a string of hunting violations in one county. "On July 4, English was cited for hunting deer at night with a light; hunting in a public road; and hunting from a vehicle. Deer-hunting season doesn't start until autumn. On Nov. 9, English again was charged with hunting deer at night with a light and hunting from a vehicle. On Nov. 25, he was cited for using bait to hunt ducks."

But since hunting teaches us that might makes right, English didn't interpret these citations as indicators that he needed to clean up his act, but rather tried to hire an assassin to kill the rangers who ticketed him. See, the outsourcing - that's what got him into trouble. If only he'd practiced more often shooting defenseless beings, he could have gone the DIY route!

ANOTHER SUSPICIOUS CJD (vCJD?) CASE

Once again, hard-charging Steve Mitchell has uncovered an odd CJD case that no one in charge seems to want to discuss, but which relatives consider to be full-blown Mad Cow. "A Connecticut woman who physicians initially suspected in 2000 of being the nation's first case of human mad cow disease appears to have been overlooked by state and federal health officials," he reports. Not only did her doctor initially suspect that form of the disease "based on electroencephalogram readings of Jodi's brain waves," but her case, at age 50 (very young for "sporadic" CJD) should have automatically triggered an investigation by the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center. But folks there are extremely cagey about discussing why no investigation seems to have happened, using the old, irrelevant "patient confidentiality" excuse so well-bandied by the National Zoo. None of it proves Americans are dying from real Mad Cow, but this story alone would make you wonder about the whole situation.

UPDATE 3/28: Speaking of those pesky suspicious CJD cases, The New York Times has now put its imprimatur on The Case of the Cherry Hill Cluster. Just ran across it - I'll have more after I read it. You too, huh?

AFTER READING: Well, it's an OK piece, I suppose, but typical of NYTMag style, I guess, in that it was either assigned with, or the author decided on, certain undeclared biases as to what the real story is. Skarbek is painted as a woman driven to distraction by her quixotic obsession, with clumsy Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole references, and the focus is on her and her motivations rather than the more relevant food-safety question. Almost no other clusters, nor the vast amount of lying and smokescreening done by the USDA on Mad Cow, are mentioned. Ultimately, the story is either willfully dishonest or ridiculously incompetent: I'll give "D.T. Max" a pass on the highly relevant factoid that CJD is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimers, but in an article whose core question is whether there might be a strain of variant CJD that resembles "sporadic" CJD, there's ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of the bombshell discovery, earlier this year, of exactly that type of BSE - and experts' opinion that this means we should be looking for it in human CJD. That omission alone is incredibly lame, and kind of sinks the credibility of the whole piece, unfortunately.

HOG HELL

This will come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog, but large hog farms are, simply put, hell on earth.

The odor knocks visitors off balance the moment they walk in the battered front door of HKY Farm. It's not so much a barnyard smell as a noxious combination of manure, ammonia and death that intensifies as one moves toward the barns. Next comes the sound of dozens of sows screaming and thrashing at their cages at the arrival of visitors and the prospect of food, a noise so loud and unsettling that a farm manager puts on ear plugs as he enters.

Inside, HKY Farm looks like a third world prison for pigs. Dozens of dead piglets are dumped in piles or encased in pools of manure beneath the floor, having drowned there after falling through a hole. Dead hogs remain in their cages, discarded and stiff in walkways or rotting in pens as other pigs gnaw at their carcasses. Many of the 1,800 or so pigs that are alive are emaciated, crippled or covered with open sores, having been poked by jagged iron bars from broken cages or fallen through slats that separate them from the manure pits below. The nursery, heated to protect the piglets, is swarming with flies, and the "sterile room" where food and medicine are stored includes yet another pile of dead pigs stacked in front of a refrigerator and bags of pig feed.

Then there's the manure. It's piled in mounds in cages and concrete pens where the animals live, dripping down the walls and floating as particulate matter in a fetid brown haze that permeates the buildings.

And guess what? This ain't even the worst of them ("critics say HKY is hardly unique among the thousands of large hog farms that have sprung up in the past decade"), and they'll keep on going until people band together and stop them. Which is what some brave souls are doing. As the Chicago Tribune reports (via Miami Herald), "increasingly, neighbors themselves are heading to court, complaining that the odor and gases wafting toward their homes are making them sick and destroying their property values."

Hog industry advocates insist that "the backlash has been driven by urban residents who move to the country and don't like the smells that come with it." Now, you may have wondered about the sentence I italicized up there. Does that square with this? I know the smell of the country, I know it well. It's not something that knocks you over. It's not the smell of death. That's not the smell of the country, it's the smell of screw-everybody CAFOs. (The GAO noted that 60 percent of the largest CAFOs are unregulated.)

And lest we forget what's driving the other side, well, it's pretty simple. This article notes in passing that "the No. 2 official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jim Moseley, is a champion of industrial-style hog production and the former manager of Infinity Pork, a hog CAFO in Indiana. Illinois' Department of Agriculture director, Chuck Hartke, is a former farmer whose son now runs the family's factory-style hog farm."

NY TIMES ETHICIST: DON'T BUY FUR

Randy Cohen, the "Ethicist" for the New York Times Magazine, has weighed in on the fur issue, and not surprisingly, finds that "there is no justification for harming animals to make something as frivolous as a fur coat." It's also, unfortunately, not surprising that he's able to see that, but dismisses the suffering of food animals. "A case can be made for some exploitation of animals -- as food or in important medical research -- when there is no meaningful alternative, and when their suffering is minimized." Yeah, but there are plenty of meaningful alternatives to eating animal products - and their suffering is rarely, if ever, "minimized." Admittedly, he only says "a case can be made" for it, and I guess I'd respond that "a case can be made" against it, too. But it's funny how the ethics of causing pain and suffering to animals for something as frivolous as a particular habitual food taste escapes even our deepest media thinkers. (Via Fund for Animals)

WHOLE LOTTA CJD GOIN' ON

The death last week of Ronald Swartz of Denville, NJ is being examined as possibly the third case of CJD, the extremely rare ("one in a million") disease, in a little over a year in an area with a population of 789,000. Plus, the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center in Cleveland has "reopened the case of a Philadelphia woman who died in 2000 and is included among the cases in a possible cluster of CJD cases tied to southern New Jersey. Carrie Mahan, 29, died from a brain disorder that was never identified but physicians initially suspected of being the nation's first case of variant CJD."

This is showing up on the Washington Times site, which means we'll probably see a fuller Steve Mitchell-bylined story in a day or two - I'll keep you updated.

UPDATE 3/24: Yep, here's the long-form version, Five CJD deaths in north N.J. in 15 months. In reading through it, I'm inferring that the five number here is because that includes confirmed or probable deaths, while the Wash. Times version limited itself to confirmed. But there are some interesting additional tidbits... The case of the Philadelphia woman, Carrie Mahan, "has baffled neurologists, such as Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the Surveillance Center, because Mahan's condition was never identified conclusively. However, many experts, including Dr. Nicholas Gonatas -- the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Mahan -- thought it was CJD. Now Gambetti plans to determine if newer, more sensitive tests developed since 2000 can detect the presence of prions, the agents thought to be responsible for both CJD and vCJD, in Mahan's brain tissue." Steve Mitchell also notes that "Another factor driving the decision to re-examine Mahan's diagnosis could be the opinions of neurologists who observed the slides of her brain when Gambetti recently presented them anonymously at a neurology meeting. Allen said Gambetti told him most neurologists there had agreed the condition looked like CJD."

And on the other coast, the Seattle Times is noting the trend: "More people are wondering whether their elderly relative might have suffered from CJD -- a degenerative disease of the nervous system -- or its variant, the human form of mad cow disease. And with so little known about the deadly diseases, some are asking if any of those cases might be traced back to bad beef."

Another interesting piece in this one has to do with the meaning of "sporadic CJD." "Labeling traditional CJD 'sporadic' is a way of getting around the fact that no one knows what causes it, said Dr. Laura Manuelidis, a neuropathologist at Yale University. Parting with the prevailing theory, she believes the culprit is more likely some type of infectious agent, not misfolded proteins. 'Spontaneous CJD just means we don't know where the infection is coming from,' she said. There's also evidence that some cases of CJD could be mistakenly tagged Alzheimer's or some other type of dementia. Swiss officials found a CJD rate of three cases per million after improving their tracking system -- triple the previously accepted rate." Just sayin'.

USDA BSE TESTING CHIEF QUITS

Bobby Acord, administrator of the USDA's Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, resigned today, for personal reasons. You know, more time with his family and all that. Oh yeah, and also he didn't think we should be widely testing for Mad Cow. A year ago, he said "There is no scientific evidence to support anything beyond what we're doing in this country, quite frankly." This was when they were still doing 10,000 cows a year and expanding it to 20,000. A simpler time, no?

And in what I assume is a coincidence, on the same day, the head of Japan's Gyudon rice bowl chain Nakau also announced he will step down due to the Mad Cow crisis. After all, What kind of gyudon shop doesn't serve gyudon? In a somewhat humorous note, the company ran out of beef due to the ban on American imports of dubious safety. But "bowls of rice topped with chicken, introduced to replace the beef, have fared poorly in the wake of the outbreak of bird flu in Japan."

"DEAR ABBY:" GO VEGETARIAN

Is it a coincidence this column appeared just before the Great American Meatout? "Abby" is talking about a specific case, but her use of the imperative is clear. When a questioner describes an unwelcome house guest who complains - "The steak isn't cooked the way he likes it, or I don't toss the salad the way his mom does. ... How can I get this moocher out of my home without causing trouble between my husband and myself?" Abby says: "That's easy. Stop feeding that moocher steak, go vegetarian, and toss the salads YOUR way."

MY OWN VEGAN IDAHO

Call me an East-Coast city slicker, but I had no idea there were more than one or two vegans in the whole state of Idaho. But in this NY Times story about John Kerry, a tossed off comment about this one town mentions that "[its] rebellious teenagers tend to be "hard-core vegans." Hey, aren't the B-52s vegan? It all makes sense now...