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The Billings Gazette –
Wednesday – August 20, 2008 – Page 2B
With new BSE case in
Canada, R-CALF calls for more testing
By TOM LUTEY
Of The Gazette Staff
Bovine
spongiform encephalopathy cases in Canada since 1997 now number nine, yet
officials there and the United States said Tuesday that brain wasting sickness
transferable to humans is out of the food supply and in control.
U.S. cattle organizations disagree on whether everything possible is being done
to protect consumers and the beef industry.
The latest case, revealed last Friday by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency,
involved a 6-year-old beef cow born five years after the Canadians banned animal
tissue from cattle feed ingredients. That's significant, say the
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF, because the bovine should never
have been exposed to food that included body tissue, known as special risk
material, from other cows.
Specified risk material includes the skull, brains and nerves attached to the
brain, as well as eyes, tonsils, spinal cords, and spinal cord nerves from
cattle 30 months or older. Small intestines of cattle of all ages also are on
the list. The material is thought to be the most likely source for the large,
misfolded proteins called prions that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or
BSE.
BSE causes small spongy holes in the brain. Scientists say BSE is related to a
rare, degenerative fatal brain disorder in humans called variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Consuming contaminated beef can cause the
brain-wasting disease in people.
The most recent cow discovered with BSE easily could have made it to the United
States.
"This animal would have been fully eligible for export to the United States,"
said Bill Bullard, chief executive officer for R-CALF, which has headquarters in
Billings.
The most recent U.S. case stems from a cow imported from Canada. R-CALF argues
that Canadians should be required to test "herd mates," or cattle from the same
herd as an infected bovine.
What Canadians now do is test the cattle born the same year as the diseased
animal, as well as cattle from the generations born immediately before and after
the infected animal. The government focuses on those generations because the
prions that spread the disease are abnormally large and most easily absorbed by
calves with still developing digestive tracks, which are extremely porous. Later
in life, the animal's digestive track is less porous, and less likely to absorb
BSE-causing protein.
"The test is invasive," said Marc Richard, a spokesman for the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency. "You have to chop their heads off."
Canadians are confident that BSE will eventually be eradicated. Food inspectors
there attribute BSE occurrences in younger cattle to loopholes in feed
requirements that ban animal tissue in cattle feed, but permit adding the
material to food for other animals. Because feed for various types of livestock
is processed through the same factory, it's thought that cattle feed processed
immediately after feed for another animal still managed to contain some
otherwise banned tissue. The other possibility is that feed intended for other
livestock was fed to cattle.
Last September, the Canadian government banned all special risk material from
all livestock feed and pet food. Other countries have taken similar measures,
because before 1997, special risk material was allowed in feed sold in many
countries, including the United States.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is satisfied with Canada's program for BSE
after inspections and a risk assessment study of BSE entering the United States.
"We assumed there would be more cases and we took that into account when we
evaluated the risk," said Karen Eggart, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service.
Internationally, the United States and Canada are both classified as "controlled
risk countries" for mad cow disease, meaning BSE has been detected here but is
under control. That status hasn't calmed consumers in countries buying American
beef, the most recent being South Korea.
BSE has been detected in U.S. cattle three times. Of the three diseased animals,
one came from Canada. U.S. officials acknowledge the Canadian-born cow
discovered with BSE on a Washington ranch in 2003, but always point north to
where the animal came from.
The Canadian government only counts BSE cases if the cattle are Canadian-born
and tested positive in Canada. It does not count the 2003 cow as a Canadian BSE
case.
While R-CALF contends it's "simply absurd in the extreme" for Canada to suggest
its national program has detected all BSE cases, other ranch organizations are
more empathetic.
BSE discoveries in Canadian cattle are disturbing, said Errol Rice, of the
Montana Stockgrowers Association. No one welcomes news that rattles consumer
confidence or threatens the industry.
But MSGA members went to Alberta to observe the Canadian inspection program and
found it extremely tight, Rice said. Montana ranchers, now dealing with their
own disease with brucellosis, should relate to the challenges of testing out of
a problem and protecting an industry.
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/08/20/news/state/38-madcow.txt
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