Have to admit that I am torn on this one, I am in fact pro treatment, I do vaccine for a few things on my farm and for different critters, their health has to come first and given that my land has been used for farming for many, many years I need to treat for thing that could effect the health of my adult breeding animals, I also believe in vaccines for my hounds and purrpots, I don’t believe that they need everything every single year but a full treatment of baby vaccines, long term use of the three year rabies and two or three year ones for the regular ones after they have their full set of baby and first year old..
I still remember the pain and shock at the age of 12 when I brought my puppy home and within weeks it needed to be put down by the vet because it had not been given a vaccine yet, and to see it again in Iqaluit, we took in a rescue puppy and despite flying it to yellowknife for medical care (I knew the vet, and the prices were alot better then sending it to ottawa) only to have to put him down because of parvo.
When I first got Girl, she scoured on me, well more like she came with scours (which is why the farmer who sold her to me would not take any money for weeks, he swore she was fine when he called me but she clearly had it when we went to pick her up, and he would not take payment for a good while as he didn’t want to refund me if she didn’t make it)
Yes, I treated her the old fashion way, super clean bedding, tons of bedding, the best milk replacer I could buy, moved her to many small meals per day, used grandpa’s treatment of beating in a egg into the milk mixture to slow her down, made sure she was totally draft free but also had lots of good fresh air and I also treated her daily with the recommended meds for her age and weight
Would she have pulled though without them, most likely, but I personally think its foolish to have only gone with the home done things and have a harder/slower/longer recovery period, instead I used everything! I could to make sure she recovered as fast as reasonable.
So when we are faced with the latest heavy duty beef recall, and there is a clear vaccine that appears ? to have the studies to back it in terms of being able to reduce this, why is it not being used.
I will be honest here, given my very! small herd, and the fact that I perfectly comfortable using a year or two to compost out my manure, I don’t see any reason to use this on my own cattle, having said that, looking at it from the idea of a feedlot, would it not make sense to just demand that the beef produces that want to move their cattle into those feedlots have to have vaccine done before they are sold into that, and the feedlots do their second ones before they go to slaughter..
If the vaccine can truly reduce the numbers this heavily and then the federal plants process don’t or won’t have “high level days”
or is this just the fact that folks have also truly gotten slack on the required cooking and cleaning process in regards to food safety in the kitchen.. When I was a child, no one would have thought to serve steaks raw or pork still lightly pink or a number of other things I see folks doing now without a thought..
Food Safety News Release
Bioniche E. coli O157:H7 Cattle Vaccine Authorized for Field Use in Canada
22/12/06
BELLEVILLE, ON, December 22, 2006 – Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. (TSX: BNC), a research-based, technology-driven Canadian biopharmaceutical company, today received authorization from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to distribute its E. coli O157:H7 cattle vaccine to Canadian veterinarians under a Permit to Release Veterinary Biologics as specified in the Canadian Health of Animal Regulations. This authorization equates to what is referred to as a “conditional license” in the U.S. This is the first vaccine technology for control of E. coli O157:H7 to be authorized for field use by a regulator globally. The vaccine is indicated for the reduction of shedding of E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in cattle.
“The Bioniche E. coli O157:H7 vaccine, developed through a partnership with the University of British Columbia, the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan and the Alberta Research Council, is a world’s first,” said Graeme McRae, President & CEO of Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. “Bioniche believes that this vaccine will be an important factor in helping to reduce the prevalence of this toxic bacterium, first implicated in meat contamination and now being increasingly identified as a contaminant of produce. CFIA’s approval gives the Company a clear and manageable pathway to full licensure.”
In order to progress from a Permit to Release Veterinary Biologics to a full license, the CFIA indicated that Bioniche must provide additional data confirming reduction in E. coli O157:H7 shedding by vaccinated animals. The Company believes that this requirement will be met in 2007.
“This vaccine will ensure that Canadian cattle producers continue to provide a safe product for Canadian consumers,” said Dr. Lorne Babiuk, Director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) and Canada Research Chair in Vaccinology and Biotechnology in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. “More importantly, the reduction of E. coli shedding into the environment will have far-reaching consequences regarding environmental contamination. The recent outbreaks of E. coli infection from consumption of vegetables is an example of additional benefits of such a vaccine. The key discovery to making this vaccine a reality was made by Dr. Brett Finlay at the University of British Columbia, when he deciphered the mechanisms by which E. coli attaches to and infects animals. Using this knowledge, it was possible to target the specific proteins of the bacterium for use in the vaccine.”
Recent outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 affecting spinach and other produce in North America have highlighted the fact that this is an increasingly serious human health threat that goes beyond meat (the first major foodborne outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 occurred in 1982 and was associated with ground beef). Human exposure to E. coli O157:H7 is being increasingly associated with contaminated fruit, vegetables, unpasteurized milk and fruit juice, potable and recreational water, and from direct contact with animals at fairs and petting zoos.
Clinical trials have been conducted with the Company’s vaccine over the past four years involving more than 30,000 cattle. Studies have consistently shown a significant decrease in the number of cattle shedding these deadly bacteria in their manure. In a controlled experiment conducted at VIDO, vaccinated cattle were challenged with a very large dose of bacteria, and there was a reduction in the magnitude of shedding by 99.47%. In clinical trials conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in commercial feedlot settings (where vaccinates and non-vaccinates were mixed), there was a 75% lower prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle vaccinated with two doses of the Bioniche vaccine. Another three-dose vaccination study was performed by the university, which showed that vaccinated cattle were 98.3% less likely to colonize the bacteria in their intestine.
About E. coli O157:H7
Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria are normal organisms found in the intestinal track of all animals and humans. Most E. coli are non-pathogenic (non-disease-causing) to their host, however certain strains can cause intestinal disease and, occasionally, other significant systemic disease. The E. coli O157:H7 bacterium, which was first identified in South America in the late 1970s and drifted northward, produces a powerful toxin (shiga/vero toxin) that can cause severe illness in humans and often result from consumption of contaminated food or water. Today, the bacteria can be found in most cattle herds in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Ruminant livestock (e.g. cattle) are considered the major reservoir of E. coli O157:H7 worldwide. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in beef and dairy cattle is widespread and that the organism is found in, on, and around cattle in all parts of the world. Use of manure as fertilizer for crop production and run-off from beef and dairy cattle operations are a source of contamination for the general environment, as well as surface and ground water. E. coli O157:H7 contamination of food and water as a result of fecal shedding by livestock is a well-recognized and documented threat to human health.
About E. coli O157:H7 Infection
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that E. coli O157:H7 infection affects some 73,000 people per year in the United States, and that 2% to 7% of those people develop hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a disease characterized by kidney failure (in recent outbreaks, this percentage has risen to as high as 16%). Five percent of HUS patients die, many of them children and senior citizens, whose kidneys are more sensitive to damage. The annual cost in the United States is estimated at more than $650 million due to medical expenses, lost productivity and death
Just another Day on the Farm 
I too raise cattle on our homestead and I agree with vaccinating when needed. I too compost my manure for extended period of time so I have little concern there but if it was required to vaccinate before selling calves, to eliminated the problem with no health issue for the consumer. Why not.
Comment reposted from http://slowfoodsmama.com/2012/10/03/wheres-the-poop/…
Used to be (when I was a kid) that there were lots of small abbatoire: pretty much one in every small community, but definitely enough to handle the animals produced locally and sold within the community and a large slaughter house to supply each city (where it was located). Then “the rules” started to change and, one by one, the small independant butchers were either nickle and dimed out if business or bought out by the bigger guys until eventually we have the situation where we are today, that allows 3/4 of the country’s meat to come from 4, yes F O U R main slaughter houses.
It is NOT more efficient to do business this way; efficiency, to me at least, would mean trucking animals the shortest distance from the farm to the market, not half way across the country… Better for the animals’ health – therefore better quality and a greater variety of meats/cuts available to the consumer; better for the environment: less transport waste, wear and tear on infrastructure; less concentration of waste product and resulting disposal difficulties. I could go on, but I’m sure you get my point…
The 100 mile diet has caught on and swept across the country/continent like a wildfire. Isn’t it also time to use the public opinion generated by this event, yet another “Walkerton” (with my apologies to the town), to force “our federal government, the Conservative Party of Canada” to enable small, local, safe and contained abbatoire to service OUR communities once again so we can know the face and perhaps even the name of the person(s) responsible for the meat that graces our table and feeds our families?
I hear you, I hunted very hard to find a small local place that can only take a very limited number of critters, and I agree that it would be awesome to go backwards in this way and get to the point of having a small butcher again for every so many small towns and their farmers, that would to me the ideal.
I would love to see the hundred mile diet get to the point that it increased the ability for small butchers to have better incomes and therefor have them want to be taken over by the younger generations.
Well, you could push to get to the point of having a bar code that tracks the meat from farm to plate, they are working on that in europe.
If animals are tagged at birth, chip technology has existed for decades and the government has been crowing about their “tracking program” for years why hasn’t this already been done? Like what “tracking program” are they talking about??
AND I would still say that the “feed lot finishing method” is also a compounding factor in the gut overload – the idea that overcrowding populations spreads disease and causes epidemics is nothing new.
of course feedlots are bad, so is taking a animal that is meant to be grazer and finishing them on grain, it ruins their health to the point that without anitbodics, they would have a hard time getting to to the point of butcher weight.
As for the tracking, in England, they have a new program in place, the cow comes in with its tag, that shows the farm and farmer that raised it and sold it, and then the body is also given that tracking number and it follows all the way though to the plate, you can see photos of the farm, the farmer and the profile by just scanning in the tracking number.
So instead of it being from a local farmer, its cow 232, from Farm Two spot by cornwall, owned by farmer Gal and Fred.. Typically as soon as the body is approved, from there it’s process is lost when it comes to cattle, not so much for pork, there are alot of pork sold oversea’s that is tracked and sold based on the farm/feed, as the buyers taste and believe in “each farm/land/water” creates its own flavour etc.
That makes absolute sense to me. In winemaking they call it Terroir, so why wouldn’t the land affect the animals who live there as well?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir
So tired of the obsession with profit overruling common sense.
Hey FarmGal, Had to write this after having only read halfway through, so forgive me if I’ve missed anything here, but back to Walkerton again… If everyone were to, as you do, use well-rotted, fully composted manure instead of flushing out their barns (thereby not only wasting precious water, but also spreading e-coli – which, by the way thrives and multiplies in an anaerobic environment (meaning “in the absence of/without oxygen”) exactly like the waste water stored in “nutrient management” lagoons: making them absolutely perfect e-coli breeding factories. Once again “the slow way” is better: completely safe and so much more efficient (if you consider the many layers of cost involved with an e-coli outbreak).
Okay, so after finishing the rest, I’d say that (paraphrasing the opening quote from Stacey, the slow food Mama’s posting) we wouldn’t be getting sick if we weren’t eating shite and, we wouldn’t be eating shite if the animals weren’t getting trucked halfway to Hell and back while awash in their own excrement: a combined result of the complete terror of their situation and being too long confined…
Hi Deb.
I get your point, i do, but the heavy loads are in the gut on these cattle and therefor in the butcher house, its when they have a heavy shed that they are having real issues, so its not the poop that was the issue, it was the gut sack that was the issue.
Now I have been though brooks a number of times, and I lived there for a number of weeks once while I was working in a duck hunting fall camp and let me tell the truth there was a couple time that I got tears in my eyes over that bloody place, its without a doubt a living hell for any poor cow that has made it there to wait for the end.. Its huge, and yes I am aware that most of the workers are brought in and would never dream of saying anything about conditions because they are on work visa’s based on the company but that is fairly common at least in alberta in regards to a number of the meat packers.
No disagreement on this one..
Interesting take. I didn’t know there were vaccines we could use to help the problem.
I think you’re right – if there is something that can be done to mitigate the terrible state of our food processing industry, those steps should be taken.
It’s a shame that things like this have to be done though. If our system raised cattle properly – finished on grass, not raised in feed lots, places where manure can be composted (whether in the field or in a compost heap), where animals are butchered with care and attention – we can use all the help we can get.
Although I’d like to think there are more options now for people who want to opt out of this dangerous system (pastured meat, small / mobile abattoirs, traditional butcher shops etc.) the reality is most people either can’t or won’t make the change. I’d rather not see kids and elderly die from their dinner if there are things we can do to help it.
Hello Slow Food Momma,
In no way do i mean to let the feedlots or the processing plant, or the goverment or even the regular folks preparing that food at home off the hook on this one, yes we have the right to expect to get reasonablely safe food at the stores but everyone from breeder to the person cooking the food has to take responablity.
I would have loved to have done a post talking about slow food movement, or 100 mile diet or buying local, supporting your farmer and I do agree with all of them but I also know that there are folks that are going to go to the local store or costco and buy their meat from there, so that was part of the reason that I felt it important to talk about something that could possably really help in the term of the vaccine.
I do think the system IS broken, but my point is if the goverment and the vast majority of peaple are going use this broken system then at least do what is available to help prevent illness.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Health/ID/2285891012/
Interesting, they talk about the vaccine in this report as well..
That absolutely came across in your post – because you’re so right – most people buy their meat at places like costco. There is a lot wrong with our system, but it isn’t going to get fixed over night (if at all) and any stop-gaps that can be employed to mitigate the damage that is inherently part of our messed up system.
It’s easy for people like myself to get caught up in ideals, but that’s no way to make change. Joel Salatin gives a really good talk about moving people along the food spectrum in a positive direction. He acknowledges that you’re not going to get folks from Costco / McDonalds to pasture raised organic meat in one step. Everyone deserves safe food no matter where they buy it.
Anyway, as I said, its a shame that we need to take these steps, but feeling that we shouldn’t have to doesn’t change the fact that we clearly need to. I agree any steps necessary at this point would be welcome.