Mad Cow Disease Reported in Alberta

[rsawchuk]

Mad cow disease reported in Canada

Officials say Alberta cow tests positive for the disease; U.S. bars beef imports from neighbor.
May 20, 2003: 2:14 PM EDT

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) - A cow in Canada has tested positive for mad cow disease in a test taken on Jan. 31, a Canadian Beef Export Federation official told Reuters Tuesday.

"It was (detected) just a few days ago. The actual test was taken Jan. 31 from a cow in Fairview, Alberta," the official said. "It's just one isolated case of an eight-year-old cow."

The United States has temporarily banned Canada meat imports after the report of the case, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Tuesday.

Veneman said the United States would not accept any "ruminant products" from Canada until further notice. Ruminant products are from animals that chew their cud, including cattle and deer.

According to a U.S. cattle industry source, a herd has been impounded in northern Alberta because of suspicions of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease.

Alberta accounts for nearly 60 percent of Canada's beef production. There are 5.5 million head of cattle in the western province.

Beef cattle production is Alberta's largest agricultural sector providing C$3.8 billion ($2.8 billion) in annual farm cash receipts, Alberta Agriculture data show.

Some 511,656 head of live cattle were shipped from Alberta to the U.S. in 2002, Alberta Agriculture said.

[stevek]

This is HUGE, yet no one seems to want to say anything? Aren't you scared? I'm not afraid for myself or family, but I'm scared to death for the cattle industry. Here in central Alberta, when it looked like we might just be recovering from 3 years of drought, things seemed pretty good. We sent a load of feeder steers to the
Auction mart on Tuesday and they were returned home by noon. What will some people be able to feed them if this drags on and what are they going to be worth even when it is over?? I still don't understand why, if a cow is not fed supplements with animal byproducts, been imported from somewhere else, what makes the rest of the herd suseptible? What is the need to kill an entire herd of healthy cows, and check each brain?

[Smithy]

Maybe everyone is just sort of holding their breath and waiting to see what happens. Most of us are probably feeling a little sick as well, and not too talkative. You are right about it being huge.
I think the herd has to be destroyed or, as some are putting it 'depopulated', more for consumer confidence than for any other reason. It is a shame there isn't some way of testing live animals.

[mbfarmer]

I think all we can hope for is another case does not surface.....that would cause a bigger crash. My question is why did it take from January 31 to now to get the results out. I agree the destruction of the herd is hard to bear but in order to boost consumer confidence it needs to be done. What are your thoughts on the market...how long is this going to affect the markets if another case does not surface.

[liberty]

Just for some interesting reading, here is the website of British cattle farmer Mark Purdey who has done a tremendous amount of research into Mad Cow disease and who firmly believes most scientists are barking up the wrong tree:

http://www.purdeyenvironment.com/

Basically, his thesis is that cattle get mad cow disease as a result of ingesting too much manganese, which he believes came about as a result of a warble fly campaign in Britain in the early 1980's. The campaign mandated extensive use of organophosphate chemicals to treat cattle, which disturbed the copper/manganese balance in their brains.

Mark Purdey refused to carry out the order, and went to court to challenge it. This, he believes, is why his cattle herd never got BSE.

He also has found that areas where native deer get a similar disease are high in naturally occurring manganese, which the deer apparently ingest through pine needles.

He speculates that most humans get the disease through exposure to organophosphate chemicals (apparently found in head lice medications) and from living in proximity to industrial sites that pollute the surrounding areas with heavy metals like manganese.

He also speculates that cattle may get BSE from eating feed that is too high in manganese.

I think this is a thesis worth exploring. It explains why, even though Britain exported thousands of tons of scrapie-infected feed around the world years ago, the disease is virtually unknown in most other nations.

It also explains why the population of Wales has never experienced an epidemic of the human version of BSE, despite the centuries-old custom of eating sheep's brains.

[ianben]

Not sure anyone understands BSE/CJD yet

In UK feeding bone meal of infected animals back to cattle was the cause of the magor epedemic here.
Where the original infected brain came from that is as far as I know as yet unclear.

Perhaps there has always been a few rare cases in cattle just like CJD in humans diagnosed as something else.

Media reaction is the problem for the beef industry.

Sounds like you guys are getting the treatment we got here.Should have 10%of UK suffering CJD by now but a report hidden by Iraq war stated 50% of population were totally imune to CJD and the all 127 who have so far died from new var CJD were in a very small group who are highly suseptable.

Could try to turn this into a success story showing how well the system works when the one cow in millions with BSE has been found and removed from the food chain.

Good luck I hope you can win as enough damage has been done with mis information and scaremongering over BSE.

[grassfarmer]

Liberty
As someone who farmed beef cattle through the BSE crisis in the UK the Purdey theory on the cause was always interesting but ultimately it has not been proven( nor has the prion theory for that matter). To say that BSE is virtually unknown in other countries despite the UK having exported a lot of contaminated feed is not true - most of the other European countries had the problems too but hid them and blatently lied about it.It is interesting that Switzerland had a statistically high number of cases when they buy all their feed from plants in Germany yet the Germans deny having home grown cases. Perhaps the Swiss like the British take their responsibilities and scientists a bit more seriously than the rest of Europe.

[rip]

While this is a tremendous setback in our industry it is actually very reassuring to see the consumers and their reaction...they are not running out on us in panic but are being very supportive... a small glimmer of light.
While the 4 month lapse of time between the cows slaughter and its diagnosis is long lets not forget that this was actually deemed a low priority cow as she did not show clinical signs of BSE and was not destined for the food chain so it was more important to check the ones first that were. The initial test on this cow was actually May 13th so the turn around was actually imediate. It is also intewresting to note that while the other countries have closed their borders to our beef they have also assured us that this is very temporary as they give us high praise for how we have handled it and we are deemed as one of the safest countries in the world. They are a little more worried now because they all know that if we can get it here... so can anyone.

Keep optimistic people... its a great industry with great people and we WILL come out the other end

[get]

I agree with rip - I think this will be more beneficial than detrimental, if our system is allowed to proceed. Also, it will focus a number of countries on our superior, safe beef industry, which will benefit all of us in the future

[stevek]

Well said and amen to Alberta Beef producers. We are well known around the world and produce the best beef around. We will endure as we always have, but damn, some days it's hard too see the light. It's hard to keep the kids on the farm these days as it is, some of us "more mature" cattle ranchers have pretty good intestinal fortitude. WE WILL CONTINUE!!!
OLD BOY'S WIFE.

[ALICIA]

Lets just hope the one cow is the only one.

[cakadu]

To me it seems like we just have to sit and hold our collective breaths to wait and see if anything else surfaces. I'm reasonably confident that it is an isolated case and we will be able to move on.

What it will do is help us to see whether or not the cattle I.D. system will prove to be very efficient and effective at locating all the animals.

The second thing that this will do is help to give us some information on how to handle a glitch in the marketplace i.e. being in a somewhat "oversupply" situation at the moment.

I've often wondered about the move to increasing beef production by 20% without a corresponding (or even some)increase in available markets for this extra production to go to. Add to that the Country of Origin Labelling that will be coming in the not too distant future as well as the knowledge that at some point our South American neighbors will eventually be able to export - Brazil has some 160 million cattle - and it makes me wonder how we are going to fare in the long run.

Here's hoping the border doesn't stay closed too long and that there is only this one case we have to deal with.

Let's not forget the other ruminant producers in the country i.e. sheep and goat producers, who are also involved in the ban to the U.S. at the moment.

We're all waiting for a green light!

[get]

with all this folks, I just wish the Big Guy would cut loose with a couple inches of moisture in our part of the world (North West Sk.) to allow us to do what we do best - make the best damn red meat in the world!

[rusty1]

cakadu - unfortunately our cattle ID system is not even being used in this situation. Nor would it even help as the syatem now stands. No one is required to read a CCIA tag except the retail outlet to record who bought which #'s. Then no one else read that # until the animal is slaughtered and the number retired. All the number carries with it is the herd of orign. So as we can see by the way the locked down farms are scattered across the country, that animal could travel through many hands in it's life time without anyone tracing who's hands it has traveled through. So until we implement a system where the tag is read by brand inspectors and at every loading or unloading chute we won't have a real trace back system. Nobody but nobody is going to do that with bar code tags. The only system that does work is Radio Frequency ID, eartags. And with a cost of around $2.00 maybe $3.00 per tag in hind sight thats a nobrainer.I'll also add that the system need to also carrie the calves number and the Dam ID, and a GPS co-ordinate to be complete.

[rip]

While I agree with Rusty that the CCIA system would have been a much greater help if it would have been implemented earlier and all of these animals could have been on it their entire lives, it has been a huge resource in this case in tracking down the progeny of the index herd and without it we would have seen probably twice as many herds quaranteened. Hopefully this will show the producer how important this system is and the need for it and allow the CCIA to increase its mandate on what and how the tags can be used. The technology and the system is in place to return information to the original herd of origin and to allow much better management practices. I am currently using the new electronic tag from CCIA @ $2.00/ head and will not go back to the regular tags again. The true value of the system has and is going to be in how the world sees our system... without it our borders would not have a chance of opening for months.

We are sitting in a very good position in the eyes of the world