Dairy cow possible crohn's connection

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How 'downer' cows enter food chainEmaciated, calcium-depleted dairy cattle are turned into meathttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-sick-cows-030208-cows-sick-usda,1,4384254.storyA videotape of crippled "downer" cows being mistreated at a California plant prompted outrage from animal welfare groups, a rebuke from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the plant's closure, criminal charges, a lawsuit, congressional hearings and the largest meat recall in U.S. history.But the video also has focused new light on a practice that some animal welfare and food safety experts say is an old problem: the use in beef production of dairy cows that are spent and barely able to stand due to calcium depletion from being milked intensively for years....Dairy cows can also carry some common maladies, including mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder; foot rot, which they can develop from standing for long periods in manure, mud and damp straw; and e's (pronounced yo-neez) disease, a wasting illness.Scientists believe these diseases are not carried into the human food chain, with one possible exception: ***Health and animal scientists are currently debating whether the traits of e's are responsible for Crohn's disease in humans. Crohn's disease is an intestinal disorder that can cause inflammation of the colon, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea and weight loss.***Some argue that it's these very problems that prompt farmers to dispatch the cows to the slaughterhouse in the first place."Farmers are obviously not culling dairy cows just because they aren't making a lot of milk," said of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, an expert on e's disease. "Almost by definition, there's something wrong with them, and in some cases those can be infections that present issues for humans."*******Mara