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Title: DEADLY FEASTS: Tracking The Secrets Of A Terrifying New Plague by Richard Rhodes ISBN: 0-684-84425-7 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 22 May, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (42 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: First, Last and Foremost
Comment: When Richard Rhodes published Deadly Feasts in 1997 it all seemed doubtful and futuristic. His investigations followed the development of this horror from the first, to 1997, and predicted the future (now). Rhodes insisted that if practices weren't changed the US would be plagued by infected cattle. Practices weren't changed, and recently cattle from the US were banned from most of the countries to whom we export. And practices still haven't changed.
If you want to read more about the future I'd suggest you read this book. Despite the passage of years there's not a better source of information about Mad Cow Disease, the protection of the US food supply, regulators bought and paid for by the regulated industry, and what the future holds for all of us.
Rating: 4
Summary: Do Vegans Worry About Mad Eggplant Disease?
Comment: When I was an undergrad--way back in the late '70's--we were told that no concrete evidence of cultures that practiced cannibalism existed. This was back when "primitive" societies were depicted as being pure and uncorrupted by modern woes, like MTV and carjackings.
But, in fact, cannibalism has been a thriving tradition among some peoples, and has only recently been wiped out. (Maybe.) And among those who ate nervous system tissue (which would NOT be my first choice, had I been born a cannibal), kuru sometimes reared its ugly head.
Kuru is yet another variation of the encephalopathy that turns the consumer's brain into sponge, which is eventually fatal. Rhodes, always a riveting storyteller, spins the tale of research into kuru, and its parallel prion-based diseases like Mad Cow and scrapie. He also examines the cut-throat academic dispute that led some early researchers (Prusiner) to the Nobel Prize and led others, equally deserving, into oblivion.
Now, Mad Cow is in the news again. It seems we in the U.S. weren't safe, after all! Our meat processing industry has, for years, chosen to ignore warnings that selling "downer" cattle for human consumption is just WRONG. Also, we have been tweaking the diets of many food animals--not just cattle--with brain tissue-based protein, so who knows where it will turn up. We may be reading about Mad Chicken disease in a few years.
It seems that the public is either in complete denial that this is a problem, or else convinced that this is the plague of the 21st Century. I don't think we'll know for another generation, when the effects will have started to appear.
Not only that, but Chronic Wasting Disease, which affects deer and elk, has already infected at least two (that we know of) hunters who ate venison. As much as the media tries to play up the issue, and as much as the "authorities" try to play it down, we do have a problem that won't go away for awhile.
I think that, for those of us who are confirmed carnivores, we really should patronize ranchers who can offer "organic" products. That may also have the effect of increasing the number of smaller agribusinesses.
And we should be informed about this. Rhodes offers a primer on the subject that is as fascinating as it is chilling.
Rating: 5
Summary: Cuts Through the Baloney
Comment: The spins and factual errors I was hearing on news reports about "mad cow" in the U.S. sent me back to Rhodes's excellent work for another look. Deadly Feasts is basic to a layman's understanding of the problem.
If more people read this book, we could build a better support base in this country for reforming operations of our food industry, especially how we feed and test animals to be processed for our dinner tables.
If we cheat ourselves of this knowledge, however, we'll be making the same mistake we made in the 1940s and 50s. We ignored scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation from atomic fission, and we sent people out to test sites just to see what might happen to them.
I don't care what the information or precautions or necessary reforms do to "the economy." I don't want my children's and grandchildren's brains wasting away 20 years from now because of the slow but relentless effect of "mad cow."
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Title: The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases by Philip Yam ISBN: 0387955089 Publisher: Copernicus Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts, William Greider ISBN: 0312241356 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 09 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett ISBN: 0140250913 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: AND THE WATERS TURNED TO BLOOD by Rodney Barker ISBN: 0684838451 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 31 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Trembling Mountain: A Personal Account of Kuru, Cannibals, and Mad Cow Disease by Robert Klitzman ISBN: 0738206148 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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