- In 1997, the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen
obtained USDA inspection records through the Freedom of Information Act
showing that a significant percentage of AMR [advanced meat recovery] samples
were turning up contaminated with central nervous system (CNS) tissue (brain
or spinal cord). Instead of simply requiring that spinal columns be removed
from carcasses before being placed in advanced meat recovery systems, the
USDA responded by merely directing its inspectors to continue testing samples
of AMR meat for the presence of central nervous tissue.
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- Despite their promise to initiate testing, the USDA took
fewer than 60 samples over the next 3 years, yet still found spinal cord
in a number of them. The first major study of AMR meat was published in
2001. Colorado State University researchers found that "well over
50%" of the samples of AMR beef from neck bones were contaminated
with CNS tissue...
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- The USDA again responded only with promises to do more
testing. The results of the USDA's tests were made public in 2002. Eighty-eight
percent of the meat processors (30 out of 34) were producing AMR beef which
contained unacceptable nervous tissue, and almost all of the samples (96.5%)
contained bone marrow, which may also be infectious...
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- ...the USDA continues to allow tissues in the American
beef supply which are so potentially dangerous that the Food and Drug Administration
has excluded them from cattle feed. As CSPI's [Center for Science in the
Public Interest] Director of Food Safety put it, "U.S. cattle aren't
allowed to eat cattle spinal cord - and neither should people," especially
children -- AMR beef is still allowed in the National School Lunch Program.
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- http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm
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