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Subscribe to RSSA new study looks at the risk of disease in the U.S. associated with illegally imported wildlife products. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown discusses the results with Dr. Denise McAloose of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
A newly published study shows that "bush meat" and other wild animal products intercepted on their way into the United States often bring with them pathogens that can be deadly to humans, wildlife and livestock.
The pilot study focused on wild animals and wild animal products coming from primates, rodents and bats from Africa that were imported for human consumption and confiscated, mainly at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. What researchers found was that viruses sometimes persisted in these products even when they were smoked or otherwise prepared to make them safe for eating.
"We know from studies and outbreaks in Africa that live animals and bush meat carry a range of pathogens," said wildlife veterinarian Kristine Smith of EcoHealth Alliance, a wildlife conservation and global health nonprofit group in New York City which led the study.
Some of the viruses they found included foamy virus -- a relative of simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV (elated to HIV), and herpes, including several new strains. Bush meat like that analyzed in the study has been known to carry Ebola and monkey pox, which remain a concern even though they did not show up in the initial samples.
The study, conducted with the Centers for Disease Control, was only a start for health and environment experts concerned about the global trade in wildlife products.
The imports sometimes are often confiscated from single travelers — often people traveling to the United States carrying products that may be traditional fare from back home in Africa or Asia.
But there are also commercial shipments, said Smith. "You get big boxes, covered up with smelly dried fish. Once you dig down through that disgustingness you find the primates."
The animal products were discovered in a wide variety of conditions, said Smith. There were parts of African cane rats completely covered in mold and oozing fluids. Another whole cane rat carcass arrived in a cooler, completely preserved and fresh.
"A lot of what we saw was bloody, moldy, raw,” said Smith. "Some of the… primates look very well smoked on the outside, but inside there was still red meat."
Although most of the samples were confiscated between 2008 and 2010 and tested immediately, one large shipment seized in 2006 by U.S. Fish and Wildlife was not analyzed until four years later -- and still carried multiple viruses.
Normally, U.S. agencies that confiscate wildlife products — typically the CDC and U.S. Fish and Wildlife — destroy them by incineration, Smith said.
Testing them first provides a picture of what is likely making its way into the market, she said. Experts estimate that only about 10 percent of the illegal trade is halted by authorities.
The United States is the world’s largest importer of wildlife and wildlife products.
About 55 million pounds of wildlife products enters the United States each year — including foods, fashion, traditional Chinese medicines and hunting trophies. In addition, more than 1 billion live animals were also legally imported for agriculture, clinical research, education and exhibition, and the pet and aquarium industry, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office.
That report concluded that gaps in the system regulating wildlife imports — which falls under several different agencies — increase the risk of disease that spread between animals and humans, as well as to other animals.
Smith says this pilot study established two important findings — that viruses were traveling to the United States and that the U.S. agencies involved in managing wildlife imports could work together seamlessly.
"We now need to expand the work to other ports around the country, and expand to other products, not just what CDC regulates," she said.
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Come on people who eats this @!$%#. You gotta be kidding.
goddam people! Idiots!
You've heard of the Black Plague ?
So then its humans vs , well who knows anymore.
bite good and hard into that hook sheeple
Who eats this stuff? To quote Douglas Adams, rich idiots trying to impress other rich idiots. Much like those fools who found and cooked a rotten, frozen mammoth carcass.
@theCavalier: Someone did that? "Oh, yum, extinct animal, dude, this stuff is SICK!"
Then again, Casu Frizigu does exist... maggot cheese. *throws up*
Chow down @!$%#s.
@!$%#s? They're importing @!$%#s? Where from? Uranus?
Smoked monkey meat,smoked bats, I'd move to the land of Big Macs to get away from that @!$%# too!
Really? My granddad worked at the meat packing plant where they made hot dogs for awhile. After he told us what went into those, they disappeared from our barbecues. You think hot dogs, sausages, and hamburgers are safe, clean meat? Think again...
If it isn't a whole piece of meat, you don't know what is in it. Even if it is a whole piece of meat, you don't know what it (or the animal) was injected with or fed.
Some of the stuff we had overseas was pretty good. Some of it, I can live without pretty easy. I sure wouldn't call McDonalds "food", though. The nutritional value is pretty close to that of cardboard.
Maybe not. But at least we do research to try to make the curing process safe and we do pant inspections. People who smuggle bush meat into this country are not scientists.
Don't inspect my pants.
AIDS, a real life lesson in why cousins shouldn't eat cousins. If we would've left the Chimps & Bonobos off the menu, then we wouldn't have been the incubator for Simian HIV and its mutation into Human HIV.
As to the Fruit Bats, a little Marburg and Ebola never hurt anyone...
That's why I'm vegetarian for most of my life.
you want quality you go to a good source, your local butcher, farmers markets, stuff like that where you get real qualitiy cuts give or take the same price as most places that have crap meat cheaper. help support the working farmers.
Great, so the next great plague will be caused by someone with a hankerin' for monkey meat.
More likely by someone forgetting to wash their hands after going to the bathroom...
Especially if they've eaten bush meat. Here you're likely to pass on hepatitis by not washing your hands--not all of these simian diseases that scientists haven't yet began to understand.
"Normally, U.S. agencies that confiscate wildlife products — typically the CDC and U.S. Fish and Wildlife — destroy them by incineration, Smith said."
Ah ha... tsk tsk. There's those pesky "job killing regulations" in action again. Why all the concern? Surely the free market will take care of this on it's own, no? <shrugs>
deport the people importing these threats back to their bush.
Gee, that actually makes sense. Which is why it probably won't happen.
ever hear of that mouldy head cheese that has been banned globally ecept in the township where it is made? and what all that goes in it, when opened has maggots, very gross stuff. but this is just past wrong.
mtsr1 - You are absolutely correct. There is nothing quite like sitting out in the bush eating a fresh killed monkey or trying bats on a skewer as the sun sets. To have to eat these items in the US is missing out on all the essence of the flavor and the native atmosphere only found in the bush.
The "TSA Perverts" that love to stick their hands down people's pants, could be used to finger-through, and check these oozing shipments. I read earlier, that they are finding nearly $400,000 annually in change during their Perverted actions. The $400,000 could fund this new project of using the "TSA Perverts" to check and finger-through these supposed infected shipments. Ciao
Well, I guess that someone has to do it. When the job calls for this kind of search, I guess that it is important in that it stops a lot of bad things from entering our country. "TSA Perverts" is a very derogatory title when they are trying to protect this country. How do you know that the TSA is really perverted? What do you really know? I will check my food for only the Made in USA label for now on.
How are they protecting this Country?? You must like being grouped by those Perverts, and giving-up your Constitutional Rights?? The TSA Perverts are saving you from the Terrorists, and you feel much safer by their perverted searches, very similar to the Nazi Gestapo... Right??.... Statistically, you have a much better chance of dying from a Honey Bee sting, being Struck by lightening and dying, dying from a poisonous snake, or spider bite, or dying from a meteor hitting on your head, than being killed by a Terrorist Attack!! Wake-up!! The most effective means of Control is through FEAR!! You have been brainwashed to fear the "Brown People" with the beards and turbans!! Nonsensical Rubbish!! It is Sheeple such as yourself, that make the job of smoke and mirror psi-ops, a can't miss objective... Ciao
The next major "Killer-Virus", will be fully weaponized, and intentionally released upon Mankind. The NWO Population Reduction Plan, fully documented in the "Georgia Guide Stones" even gives one, an actual target number for total World Population. Ciao
Hopefully they get you.
Hopefully you are not a TSA Pervert, or did i hit too close to home?? Ciao
Who are these primitives who are trying to import these "putrid-enough-to-gag-a-maggot" menu offerings? Do you "conservatives" and teabaggers still want to deregulate?
Deregulation has nothing to do with the problem. Obama is in charge and yet we have a very ineffective government. They can't seem to do anything right. We have so many ineffective government workers it would be impossible to count them all and by the time you finished counting there just be a lot more new ones.
Obama is spending us into massive debt that will never be repaid. Why can't Obama fire lazy inept government workers and cut their budgets?
Joyce, go eat some of this stuff. Lazy government workers? Like the ones who have already had their agencies cut and can't keep up with the deregulated meat industry? Give me all the government we need to prevent this s*&%!
People are morons. How about some beef brains with a fillip of Mad Cow Prions? Maybe a bit of monkey meat lightly spiced with HIV? Perhaps a bit of bat, with a soupcon of Ebola? Mayhaps some Mouse a'la Marburg? And if you don't like exotic retroviruses, I'm sure we can cater to your taste with Chinese pork taken from culled swine with "Blue Eared Pig Syndrome" or a bit of Mongolian Marmot with Septicaemic Plague (those stupid Americans will buy anything - including lead paint and date rape drugs for their kids' toys)? I mean, seriously, the Chinese managed to get rid of all those infected chickens with Avian Flu by canning 'em and selling them to the Americans.
Meanwhile, the US Government actively refuses to enforce the food purity and other product safety laws pertaining to imports which are already on the books (not that Obama's done anything about that, but it was Bush who decided to abandon the protection of American consumers in the first place).
Just remember, it was either a single (illegal) Haitian immigrant or a single gay French airline attendant (opinions vary) who managed to introduce AIDS into the USA, from whence came over a million cases of HIV in less than 40 years. How long will it take for a bit of bad monkey meat to turn Ebola into the next endemic disease? But who cares, as long as you get your bite of Bush Pig?
I doubt we'll last until 12/21/12...
Remember HIV was first discovered in the US in a gay community. Look how far the disease has spread.
Our government cannot protect it's people from anything. We don't have secure borders. We don't know who is going in or out of this country. We don't properly inspect imports.
What can our government do Mr. President?
The sad thing is, these third world people consider these things delicacies. "Look, u have to import these things, can't get them in the United States!"
Oh relax, ye douchebags. No deportations are necessary. Just ban the stuff and make it illegal to import into the country. There, problem solved.
Mad Cow, e. coli, bush meat viral threats, colon cancer, heart disease. Meat eaters die sooner one way or the other.
Lets stop making America a home for savages. Its bad enough we are incompetent in the area of immigration controls and even have a president who has little interest in stemming the flow of these stone-age people, but something HAS to be done before we just become one more part of central Africa.
All folks involved in this savage practice of smuggling these "treats" into the US should be put on a permanent "No Entry" list and those that patronize outlets that sell this vile stuff should have their immigration status crefully reviewed and then sent back to the jungles that they miss so strongly.
Maybe even a president who thinks more about America than the "motherland" might be a start in the right direction.
What next!!!
Savages, indeed. What were your ancestors doing in the New World to the native Americans?
Um... and people think that food looks APPETIZING?
When wilt thou save the people?
The bushmeat trade should certainly be stopped! No bushmeat should be allowed in this country no matter the circumstance. I really can't fathom someone eating a primate to begin with and to kill wild animals for profit is just obscene! These poachers don't seem to care that they are destroying a large number of irreplaceable species for the almighty dollar! there should be penalties for anyone who orders or otherwise buys bushmeat in our country! I can't begin to tell other countries what to do, but, anyone can see the destruction wrought by the bushmeat trade! We like to say that we live in a civilized world! Right! In a pig's eye! You have the Japanese killing whales for "research"! If it takes their scientists 1000 animals to determine what is going on with a species, I'd say, they need to get some competent scientists! Actually they aren't fooling anyone! They are killing whales strictly for profit! Pure greed, just like the purveyors of bushmeat! Red
Bush meat is "Bad Monkey"..
Another facet of the pure diamond of truth that we shoulda shut the doors long ago.----dope it out!
You eat bushmeat ,you,ll be pissin black in a wk.Hepatitus,etc.Trichnosis make you wish you were dyin.
Google information on the great pandemic of 1918. The introduction of bushmeat into civilized societies is enormously dangerous and deadly.