|
| |
Ag Weekly
- - - Saturday - - - Sept. 2, 2006 - - - 1:38 p.m. CDT
R-CALF -- Report contradicts USDA
BSE position
By
Ag Weekly
BILLINGS,
Mont. n The Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued last week the conclusive
report on its epidemiological investigation of a 50-month old dairy cow
diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy on July 13. The report revealed
information previously not documented, contends cattlemen’s group R-CALF USA.
The animal was born almost five years after Canada implemented its 1997 feed ban
on feeding ruminant meat-and-bone meal materials back to ruminants.
According to the report, the cow did not express symptoms of BSE and died from
an unrelated disease. Yet, the cow was detected with a rapid BSE test perhaps
eight months before the Canadian testing program would have targeted the animal
for BSE testing, R-CALF officials said in a press release this week.
The report
stated, “The normal disease course to expression of clinical signs in this
animal would be expected to have included an additional three to six months of
incubation followed by an additional one to two months of clinical expression
prior to being recognized as symptomatic of BSE and targeted for testing.”
“The revelation that a rapid BSE test can detect infected animals up to eight
months before the animal would fit the criteria for targeted testing is not only
new news, but groundbreaking news,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
“This 50-month-old Canadian cow would have been only 15 months old when the U.S.
Department of Agriculture reopened the Canadian border to imports of Canadian
beef in August 2003,” he said. “Because scientists believe that BSE-positive
cattle are most likely infected during their first year of life, this means that
the beef from this cow n an animal which was incubating the BSE agent n was
eligible for export to the United States from August 2003 through January 2005.
“USDA has consistently taken the position that BSE testing can only detect
infectivity two months to three months before an animal begins to exhibit
clinical symptoms of the disease,” Bullard said.
“This development means BSE can indeed be detected through additional testing,
long before symptoms begin to appear,” Bullard said. “This would suggest that
Canada n if it would dramatically increase BSE testing of its cattle herd n
could detect the disease in animals that are not yet exhibiting clinical
symptoms, but are destined for the human food chain.”
The CFIA report did not definitely identify the source of contamination, but it
did conclude feed contaminated through cross contamination with prohibited
material likely was the source of the disease. Although Canada recently
announced it was tightening its feed-ban requirements to ban potentially harmful
cattle tissues from all animal feeds the new regulations are not scheduled to
take effect until July 2007.
“Because of Canada’s continuing BSE problems and its decision to postpone for
another year regulations to improve its feed ban, there is a very definite
possibility that the U.S. has a good chance of importing live Canadian cattle
that already are incubating BSE, but showing no symptoms of the disease,”
Bullard noted.
“In July 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended strengthening
our domestic feed ban, but no action has yet been taken,” Bullard said.
http://www.agweekly.com/articles/2006/09/02/commodities/livestock/lvstk03.txt
|
