Bovine Lukemia virus

[personman]

Hi. I heard on Jeff Rense's program that Beef(canadian and American) contains BLV(above). A few  internet searches seem to confirm this. Is this the case with grain-fed beef and/or all BEEF?

[Lynnzard]

From what I've been able to gather in the reading I've done, it's prevalent in most North American herds regardless of diet, because minimal effort has been made to curtail the spread of the disease. General consensus was that culling was neither cost-effective nor practical due to the high numbers of infections. Various tests over time led the powers that be to the conclusion that it's not a threat to human health because it's not cross-contagious to humans.

Whether this is accurate or not seems still to be some matter of debate since higher instances of cancer have been recorded in butchers and slaughter house workers, high enough to be anomalous but not well studied enough for meaningful conclusions.

[cherimoya_kid]

Most of our major diseases, from AIDS to smallpox to anthrax, jumped from infecting animals to infecting humans.

[Lynnzard]

Most of our major diseases, from AIDS to smallpox to anthrax, jumped from infecting animals to infecting humans.

Yes, and this disease has shown a tendency to be able to adapt to cross-species infection already with dogs being particularly vulnerable. I think taking the attitude that "since it's not making any of us sick yet let's not worry about it"  is pretty irresponsible given what a common food source beef is in North America. Denmark took this disease very seriously and was the first country in the EU to eradicate it from their herds. Needless to say, it's a much easier task over a small landmass than the expanse of the US and Canada.

For me personally, I'd need to see a much firmer link between bovine and human infections to take beef off my menu at the moment, but it doesn't hurt to be aware.

[goodsamaritan]

Too much ado about viruses.  I would be looking more at the FEEDS.  You know... gmo feeds, fungus on feeds, grains instead of grass, telephone directories instead of grains, chicken shit as feeds, cannibal feeds, gross stuff... and the water.

Fix the feeds shit first.

Then I will consider viruses.

[personman]

Thanks for the response guys. So should I cease to consume the grain-fed beef as I have minimal sources of food here and will for some months time. I have questioned whether it would be best to switch to mainly eggs and drop beef altogether to avoid cancerous states. Would the omega fats play a detrimental role. I feel better eating mainly eggs BUT...maybe the omega fats are developing some problems(inflammation, etc). So far I have not been able to detect anything focsuing on eggs but....an ounce of prevention might be worth a pound of cure.