Monday, March 19, 2007
Ethnic Food
Call me an ethnofascistic xenophobe if you want, but I've got a little problem with this:
In 2003, a large suitcase containing the remains of 26 butchered monkeys was confiscated at Logan Airport in Boston on its way from Ghana.
The 300 pounds of raw meat, destined to be served as the main course at a wedding in New Hampshire, was "oozing out of its container," said Tom Healy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Experts estimate that about 500 million wild animals, from cane rats to elephants, have been killed in Central Africa for their meat. In the Congo Basin alone, this "bushmeat" is consumed on the order of 1 to 5 million metric tons, or the equivalent of 9 to 45 billion quarter pounders.
A small percentage of that meat finds its way into the United States, and with it, scientists warn, comes a potential public health crisis.
Cane rat, monkey and bat are the bushmeats most often found being smuggled into the United States, and according to Jennifer McQuiston, a veterinarian at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, each is known to carry diseases that can be deadly to humans.
"Rodents from Africa carry viruses like monkeypox, and nonhuman primates can carry Ebola and tuberculosis," she said.
In 2003, more than 50 people across the Midwestern United States were diagnosed with monkeypox. Scientists traced the outbreak to a Texas pet shop that sold domesticated prairie dogs, as well as a giant infected rat imported from Gambia.
...
Last year federal agents found 33 pieces of bushmeat, including a monkey arm hidden under dried fish in the garage of a Liberian immigrant living in Staten Island, N.Y. Mamie Jefferson, 39, who is still awaiting trial on smuggling charges, says that consuming bushmeat is a religious practice protected by the First Amendment.
...
Anecdotal evidence suggests a variety of ways the meat is smuggled into the country, Eves said.
"Carrying it in duty-free bags through customs, in luggage, shipping it in the mail and carrying it on their bodies. On the commercial level, shipments are often embedded in dried fish," she said.
From there, it often finds its way into the markets of American cities that have large concentrations of immigrants from Western and Central Africa.
...
The risk of diseases jumping from animals to humans is very real. In addition to the SARS and bird flu epidemics out of Asia in recent years, "it is generally understood that HIV arose through contact with nonhuman primates," said Nina Marano, a veterinarian at the CDC.
Increased human contact with wild animals -- from butchering to eating -- increases the risk of infection for a host of diseases, some well-known, others less so. Simian foamy virus, a retrovirus in the same family of diseases as HIV, "is associated with people who butcher nonhuman primates," Marano said.
In 2003, a large suitcase containing the remains of 26 butchered monkeys was confiscated at Logan Airport in Boston on its way from Ghana.
The 300 pounds of raw meat, destined to be served as the main course at a wedding in New Hampshire, was "oozing out of its container," said Tom Healy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Experts estimate that about 500 million wild animals, from cane rats to elephants, have been killed in Central Africa for their meat. In the Congo Basin alone, this "bushmeat" is consumed on the order of 1 to 5 million metric tons, or the equivalent of 9 to 45 billion quarter pounders.
A small percentage of that meat finds its way into the United States, and with it, scientists warn, comes a potential public health crisis.
Cane rat, monkey and bat are the bushmeats most often found being smuggled into the United States, and according to Jennifer McQuiston, a veterinarian at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, each is known to carry diseases that can be deadly to humans.
"Rodents from Africa carry viruses like monkeypox, and nonhuman primates can carry Ebola and tuberculosis," she said.
In 2003, more than 50 people across the Midwestern United States were diagnosed with monkeypox. Scientists traced the outbreak to a Texas pet shop that sold domesticated prairie dogs, as well as a giant infected rat imported from Gambia.
...
Last year federal agents found 33 pieces of bushmeat, including a monkey arm hidden under dried fish in the garage of a Liberian immigrant living in Staten Island, N.Y. Mamie Jefferson, 39, who is still awaiting trial on smuggling charges, says that consuming bushmeat is a religious practice protected by the First Amendment.
...
Anecdotal evidence suggests a variety of ways the meat is smuggled into the country, Eves said.
"Carrying it in duty-free bags through customs, in luggage, shipping it in the mail and carrying it on their bodies. On the commercial level, shipments are often embedded in dried fish," she said.
From there, it often finds its way into the markets of American cities that have large concentrations of immigrants from Western and Central Africa.
...
The risk of diseases jumping from animals to humans is very real. In addition to the SARS and bird flu epidemics out of Asia in recent years, "it is generally understood that HIV arose through contact with nonhuman primates," said Nina Marano, a veterinarian at the CDC.
Increased human contact with wild animals -- from butchering to eating -- increases the risk of infection for a host of diseases, some well-known, others less so. Simian foamy virus, a retrovirus in the same family of diseases as HIV, "is associated with people who butcher nonhuman primates," Marano said.
# posted by Diomedes @ 4:38 PM 
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Thanks D for teh post.
Rog, go to the CDC website on Monkeypox which is a virus related to smallpox and cowpox.
There was an outbreak in the U.S. in 2003 as a result of people being exposed to prairie dogs.
The smuggling of cane rat is a problem.
T
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Rog, go to the CDC website on Monkeypox which is a virus related to smallpox and cowpox.
There was an outbreak in the U.S. in 2003 as a result of people being exposed to prairie dogs.
The smuggling of cane rat is a problem.
T
# posted by 
: 10:23 AM
: 10:23 AM << Home
