[Sca-cooks] OT: no salami imports down under?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Cadoc wrote:
<http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11767965%5E1702,00.html>
>
>  From what this is telling me, it is possible to transmit animal diseases
>  through finished cured food products?
>
>   Anyone know if that is possible?

This article specifically mentions hoof-and-mouth disease (called 
foot-and-mouth disease in the UK), which is a highly contagious 
virus, infecting cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and others with cloven 
hooves, such as deer, llamas, and camels - even elephants can get it. 
It doesn't make horses, humans, and carnivores sick.

While it only kills about 5 per cent of the animals infected, it is 
very painful during the illness, and causes those that survive to be 
underweight (not good for meat animals), to have reduced milk 
production (not good for dairy animals), and to have miscarriages 
(bad for pregnant females). In places that have outbreaks commonly, 
sick animals are slaughtered and turned into meat ASAP, since nursing 
them back to health isn't worth the time, trouble, or money.

There was a terrible outbreak in England last year or the year 
before. Since the country had been free of the disease, it had to 
have been brought in from somewhere else. As far as i can tell since 
BSE, the English have been pretty strict about imports of food 
animals. Because of hoof-and-mouth, they had to kill millions of 
animals, and not just meat animals, but "hair" animals (sheep and 
goats), and pets (pet sheep, for example - i don't know if the 
pot-bellied pig was a pet craze there like it was in the US), since 
they could continue to transmit it.

So they think it came in via undeclared meat from a country which has 
endemic hoof-and-mouth, and it could even have come in a sandwich 
uneaten parts of which were discarded in a farm midden.

The virus can be spread through direct contact or through the air. 
People can transmit the disease, carrying the virus on their shoes 
and clothing. Additionally,, it can live in the environment - on 
clothes or hay or even in human nasal passages - for a month. Heat, 
chemical disinfection, or lack of moisture can kill the virus. 
Freezing does not.

So back to the salami... if the meat in it was not heated to the 
necessary temperature, it could be a transmitter - and many European 
preserved meats are essentially raw, preserved by salt, smoke, and/or 
drying.

There are countries which are certified as free from hoof-and-mouth 
disease and others that aren't. Humans won't get sick from eating the 
meat, so in some countries regulations aren't strict.

Countries that are certified free of hoof-and-mouth go to great 
lengths to maintain that status, as it allows them in export meat and 
meat animals to other countries that are certified free.

Since Australia is a major meat and wool animal country - most 
especially sheep - they are naturally quite protective.

There hasn't been a major outbreak in the US since 1929 - in 
California - and was thought to have been brought by imported 
wildlife.

Thorvald mentioned BSE, which is can also be transmitted by cooked or 
cured meat.

Anahita