Is that some brain on your steak?
An excerpt on mad cow disease and our methods of preparing live cattle for becoming not alive to be processed...
The World Health Organization has pointed out that American beef can be contaminated with brain and spinal cord tissue in another way as well. Except for Islamic halal and Jewish kosher slaughter (which involve slitting the cow's throat while the animal is still conscious), cattle slaughtered in the United States are first stunned unconscious with an impact to the head before being bled to death. Medical science has known for over 60 years that people suffering head trauma can end up with bits of brain embolized into their bloodstream; so Texas A&M researchers wondered if fragments of brain could be found within the bodies of cattle stunned for slaughter. They checked and reportedly exclaimed, "Oh, boy did we find it." They even found a 14 cm piece of brain in one cow's lung. They concluded, "It is likely that prion proteins are found throughout the bodies of animals stunned for slaughter." There are different types of stunning devices, however, which likely have different levels of risk associated with them.
.......The Texas A&M study was published in 1996 using the prevailing method at the time, pneumatic-powered air injection stunning. The device is placed in the middle of the animal's forehead and fired, shooting a 4 inch bolt through the skull and injecting compressed air into the cranial vault which scrambles the brain tissue. The high pressure air not only "produces a smearing of the head of the animal with liquefied brain," but has been shown over and over to blow brain back into the circulatory system, scattering whole plugs of brain into a number of organ, and smaller brain bits likely into the muscle meat as well Although this method of stunning has been used in the United States for over 20 years, the meat industry, to their credit, has been phasing out these particularly risky air injection-type stunners. The Deputy Director of Public Citizen argues that this industry initiative should be given the force of federal regulation and banned, as they have been throughout Europe.