Chasing Mosquitoes & BSE Update

Chasing Mosquitoes & BSE Update plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

I can remember a time when I was growing up that the local mosquito control trucks would drive through the neighborhood fogging everything that moved. Including us kids. Now days it is more precise and in one instance, personal. Idaho’s Ada County officials are doing door-to-door inspections for standing water and when found...spray it. They are looking for buckets, leaking sprinklers, planters, anything that could be hiding or causing small pools of water. Have you checked your property?

Back in April a California dairy cow was discovered with BSE and USDA Chief Veterinarian John Clifford explains some of the findings and conclusions.

CLIFFORD: We were able to detect this animal. The atypical BSE’s can have a little different pattern of the prion or the agent itself in the brain tissue that we’re collecting. But we were able to detect this animal with the test we currently use and those tests tend to be very sensitive. So at this point we are not anticipating any changes. We feel that the program we have in place in the U.S. to protect animal health and human health and the safeguards that we have in place are effective and the risk of BSE in this country is extremely low.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

The Olympics have taken center stage this last week, with the athletes being asked questions on everything from how they felt about losing that gold medal, to what brand of underwear they’re wearing, and of course, what they had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Which by the way, is quite interesting. Olympians eat several thousand calories more a day than the average person. With the amount of physical training they do they have to. Many of the athletes include, beef, eggs, bacon, sports drinks, and chocolate milk in their daily caloric intake. Perhaps they didn’t receive the “memo” from any number of food activists spouting the dangers of eating meat, dairy, eggs, potatoes, and sugared drinks. No, rather they and their trainers know that a body undergoing great physical exertion needs the right amount and right kind of fuel. Olympians stand as a prime example of what physical exercise can do for a person. Of course, most of us will never achieve Olympian physical standards, but we can make the effort to get off the couch more and take some personal responsibility when it comes to physical activity. We should hurry up and do it though, before the government imposes mandatory diet control.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.