BSE ... New Regs fall short

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie and Lee;

I find it disturbing that Canada is not following known information on infected BSE animals, that the normal BSE infection shows up between 3-5 years of age, this is not a disease of just older cows, but can appear in cattle at 24 months!

Why are we not proposing safegaurds that err on the side of saftey?

The following FAO recomendation exists;

"- Specified risk materials (brains, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord, etc.) should be removed from all beef and sheep carcasses over 12 and 6 months respectively"

Why are we going to make 30 months the standard, when clearly it should be 12 months for beef and 6 months for sheep?

The folowing articles are telling:

BSE - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
http://www.prionics.ch/prionics-e.htm

BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) was first described in the UK in 1985. In 1996, new scientific findings indicated that BSE is transmissible to man and causes a variant of CJD.
After the infection of cattle with BSE, 3-6 years pass on average before clinical symptoms (such as the decline in milk production, shaking and timidness) develop. This incubation time can vary widely, with a span of from from 20 months (youngest) to more than 15 years. As a result of this incubation time, products from infected but not visibly ill animals end up in the human food chain.
In a first phase after infection, the infectivity of an affected animal is at a very low level. Officials therefore assume that BSE-infected animals do not pose a health risk to humans in this phase. Nevertheless, it should be stated here that the possibility of potential risks can not be completely ruled out.
In a second phase, before the occurrence of clinical symptoms, the infectious agent is found to be highly concentrated especially in the brain and in the spinal cord. It is this phase which represents the main risk factor for public health: an animal in this phase of infection poses the same risk to the consumer as a visibly ill animal, but is not detected due to the lack of signs of disease. The duration of the second phase is thought to be at least 6 months.
In a third phase clinical symptoms occur followed by death. The age of animals in the third phase of the disease ranges from 20 months to 16 years. The average and most frequent age is between 3 to 5 years.

© Copyright by Prionics AG, Switzerland


http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/18603-en.html

Andrew Speedy from the Animal Production and Health Division of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations anounced today in a press release that all countries should continue to check for the disease and apply precautionary measures. "Even countries which have not found any cases of BSE should now consider adopting mor stringent measures" Mr. Speedy said.

Countries should apply the following measures:

- Besides passive surveillance and testing of all animals showing neurological symptoms, active surveillance should be carried out, including: all cows which are killed because of disease or accident; all emergency slaughtered cows; and a random sample of all cows during routine slaughter.

- A national risk assessment should be conducted for the presence of BSE, considering imports of feed and cattle and the efficiency of the rendering and feed industries.

- Specified risk materials (brains, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord, etc.) should be removed from all beef and sheep carcasses over 12 and 6 months respectively.

- Standards of rendering need to be improved with the correct temperature, pressure and time of processing (133 degrees, 3 bar, 20 minutes).

- All cross-contamination of rendered products and in animal feed manufacture must be avoided. There are risks of cross-contamination if feed for poultry and pigs or pet food is in contact with feed for cows.

- Where this cannot be achieved, the use of meat and bone meal in animal feeds should be banned altogether.

- Cows found with BSE must be killed; all direct offspring of cows with BSE should be slaughtered, as well as all animals born in the same year and the same herd as the animal with BSE; in all these cases, the carcass must be incinerated.

- Effective national identification and recording should be implemented to ensure that animals can be traced back to source.

Open trade depends on assurance that the product is safe and this can only be achieved by undertaking the national risk assessment, active surveillance and implementation of all recommended measures, Mr. Speedy said. "It is not so much whether there have been isolated cases of BSE found by animal testing, but rather whether the exporting country can provide assurance that the system is in place to keep infective material out of the food chain."


If I were the US and Japan, I would not be pleased with Canada, we have not come clean yet... IMHO!

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie and Lee;

This is new CDN regs;


http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/media/releases/2003/bse.htm


"The measures announced today will require the removal of such materials as the brain, and spinal cord from carcasses of cattle older than 30 months. Scientific research has shown that these tissues, in cattle younger than 30 months, do not contain the infective agent. A portion of the small intestine will be removed from carcasses of all cattle."

Why are we going less than half way to make our beef products safe?

This is a Commodity Marketing Beef site, I hope my bringing this up is appropriate, as our grains and all our communities are paying a BIG price for the BSE problem!

[charliep]

Not so sure your question. Are you suggesting Canada should test all animals slaughtered over 12 months? My understanding doesn't express itself until animals are over 30 months so the test would be useless for younger animals. Are you suggesting that specified risk materials be excluded from all feed products? What would be done with this material? What impact will this have Canadian competitiveness with other regions?

An interesting comment is that the regulations and approaches to testing for BSE and including animal by products in feeds for other species are very similar both sides of the US/Canada border. Animals have moved back and forth relatively freely. Our animal identification systems are in place with a recognition there improvements to be made. To date, there is none in the US with a comment that country of origin labeling issue is pushing them this way. Whatever Canada agrees does will be the standard the US will be asked to meet.

[ValueChainFX]

TOM4CWB not totally sure which part you believe is not meeting the standards so maybe you could clarify the parts you do not believe are being met.

TOM4CWB I do agree with you that we could go all the way and we should, the challenge I see with this is the processors being able to meet any further requirements without a tremendous cost to their present system. (As if the producers are not paying the price now!)

I can say that I know for a fact that spinal cords and brains have been taken out of the mix now for several years in at least one large operation. I am sure we were pulling these in 1999 but it could have been in 2000 but either way they have been out of the mix for a while now. Also tight controls are in place for the amounts of Mechanically Deboned Meat that is used in product for human consumption. (I believe this is based more on calcium content than on any other control issues).

I still believe that if we have the industry under the microscope now we should put in place the things that will make us the worlds safest provider of proteins and go from there. We can't do anything about the politics at the producer level, but we can make changes to keep our industry sustainable, and we know if we wait for the powers that are to make a decision the industry will belong to the US!

[TOM4CWB]

ValueChainFX and Charlie;

The question was:

Why are we not proposing safeguards that err on the side of safety?

The following FAO recommendation exists;

"- Specified risk materials (brains, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord, etc.) should be removed from all beef and sheep carcasses over 12 and 6 months respectively"

Why are we going to make 30 months the standard (for the removal of Specified Risk Materials), when clearly (according to the FAO) it should be 12 months for beef and 6 months for sheep?

I understand the competitive side of your argument... but it is hard to talk of being "competitive" when you can't export for 7 years, the length of time required to be certified free of BSE.

Is it not now our CDN responsibility to put in place as stringent of measures as are needed, which the FAO has clearly articulated, in the June News release, I quoted above?

The FAO recommendations are for non-BSE reported countries like the US as well, not Just Canada or other Countries that have had cases of BSE.

I see in the above info that it is possible for a beef animal to get BSE (the third stage) at 20 months, and with a 6 month incubation period, that leaves the beef animal at 14 months as the beginning of the contamination BSE agent being at risk of food chain contamination, according to expert opinions. This is why I assume the FAO recommends that every beef animal above 12 months old have the specified risk materials removed from the food chain.

The rumor mill has been at work on saying the US has had BSE cases as well, but this is not the issue from a human health perspective.

Alberta and Canada had enough integrity and honesty to report and make the BSE problem public, now we have a responsibility to the cattle industry and farm communities to institute a strict safe system that will rebuild international trust that we have the safest and best beef products on the face of this planet.

If we can't do this and back it up scientifically, what hope do we have to open borders to exports?

I understand Japan tests every animal slaughtered for BSE, the same as the EU, why shouldn’t we if we expect to export beef to them?

[ianben]

Cowman used to say no-one wins in a drought.
BSE is very similar in my experience.

The world has not stopped since the US border was closed.
Guys all along the chain will have had to change their business when Canadian beef stopped.
If it is the same as here some will already have gone broke others will have found alternative supplies.
No amount of tracabillity and assurances can make it go away. When your border opens it will not the same as before. Why take the risk with Candian???
We had and still have massive government help.
Our removal of all animals over thirty months old should in theory make ours the safest beef in the world but exports are still minimal.

Every animal has a passport and its whereabouts known from birth to slaughter.

These are massive costs to government. £4billion to remove over thirthy months stock. Passport/tracability system cost £7/animal paid for by government plus cost of double tagging and paperwork for farmers and whole supply chain.

Is it any wonder imports take more of our domestic market and markets and abotoirs go broke!!

7yrs you must be joking. Unless farmers can react to the real situation and admit the only solution is the produce for the new market it will take even longer.

I know some of you will not like it but I think you need a government program to remove beef from the market.

Over thirty months fits in well and gives consumer confidence.

Once started can it be stopped? That is our latest problem. Government wants to save the £4billion(who can blame them)but what will be the effect of that beef on our market?

[charliep]

Ianben

I talked to a fellow from Ireland and he indicated that BSE cases are still turning up there. He also talked about the tracing system you mention.

I understand that 125 people died from CJD (or whatever the human equivalent to BSE is). When was the last person to have died? How many have died in the last five years since Europe has stepped up its survellience systems?

The is a horrible disease in a human. Having said that, there still needs to be some risk assessment done. One comment I heard from someone from the UK was there have been more farmers commit suicide because of the stress of having their animals destroyed/seeing their lifes work ended that have died from the human equivalent of BSE.

[ValueChainFX]

TOM4CWB I agree 100%, we should make sure that whatever the system says we should do, we go above and beyond as much as we can. I also believe that we best prepare ourselves for more big changes. I was in a meeting last week where the regulations were described as being "Fluid".

Whatever we do we need to make it "Fluid" as well. I don't believe we are going to get some of these guys to change their operations (such as the big packers). I do know that as producers we are going to have to take the lead on the working component side of things because the politicians do not have the will or the foresight to invest in real solutions. This was made pretty clear to us in the last few weeks in public and more clearly in some of the close door meetings.

When you hear the agriculture minister on national television say,” well in the next three weeks we will think about looking at a proposal to help farmers”, I would like to suggest we cut her wages by the same percentage that producers have had their incomes cut.

In fact if all our little agriculture dictators had their incomes adjusted to match the producer, maybe we would see less pompous attitude and more action!

I hope this isn't going past the rules of this forum and if so, I apologize in advance. However, I believe it probably represents the frustration of producers when I suggest the politicians do what they are being paid for!

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

As a wise person said back in June;

If you think I am going to feed my grandchildren meat that risks them getting a variant of CJD,

... FORGET IT.

No person NEEDS to eat Beef.

We are wealthy enough in the western world that we can afford not to eat beef.

Shucks, 3rd world countries cannot afford to eat beef in the first place, it is a wealthy societies luxury.

THIS IS THE PROBLEM, and we in Alberta need to grasp the reality that we cannot force anyone else, anywhere else, to eat our beef.

This is why the "Risk Assesment" theory is not valid, it is an excuse to bury our heads in the sand.

We must get beyond this stage, it will not work outside Canada.

We cannot turn the clock back, life and politics are neither of them fair, but we must get along the best we can... and destroy as few communities and lives as possible.

Charlie, we in Alberta are blessed with the most monitary and physical wealth of anywhere on planet earth, we can afford the changeover to the new system.

Now we just need the leadership and wisdom to get along and do what needs to be done.-.-... the right thing that shows integrity.

If we institute a Japan style BSE testing system, FRANKLY, I believe the fear is that another case or cases of BSE will be discovered... the odds are that this will happen if we test enough animals for long enough!

This is why the FAO said the following:

http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/18603-en.html

"BSE case in Canada should not cause panic

Surveillance and diagnosis programmes are working - FAO urges all countries to check for BSE

3 June 2003, Rome -- The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a cow in Canada proves that active surveillance and diagnosis programmes are working, FAO said in a statement today.

"The identification of a single case of BSE is not a cause for panic," said FAO's Andrew Speedy, Animal Production and Health Division.

"It is good news that odd single cases of BSE are being picked up by inspection. There has been no sign of an escalation of numbers in any of the countries that have identified isolated cases. Rather, it demonstrates that active surveillance is picking up the one-in-a-million case."

"All countries should continue to check for the disease and apply precautionary measures, even where BSE has never been found," Speedy said.

BSE cases since 2001

A few cases of BSE have been found since 2001 in a number of new countries like the Czech Republic (4), Greece (1), Israel (1), Japan (7), Luxemburg (2), Poland (5), Slovakia (11) and Slovenia (3), according to official reports to the Office International des Epizooties (OIE).

"This is the result of effective government programmes to find and destroy the disease," Speedy said.

"In addition, the trend in the European countries which were most affected is certainly downwards. In the UK, for example, the numbers peaked in 1992 with 37,000 cases and went down to 1,144 cases in 2002. There were less than 1,000 cases identified by the surveillance programmes in the rest of Europe in 2002, out of a total cattle population of over 80 million."

Meat-and-bone-meal is no longer fed to ruminants in many countries and it has been banned altogether in the EU, according to FAO. Programmes are in place to test large numbers of animals by microscopic examination and modern laboratory tests. Affected animals are destroyed. These steps are meant to ensure that infective material will not enter the food chain.

More stringent controls required

FAO urged countries to apply its recommendations made together with the World Health Organization (WHO) and OIE in 2001.

"Even countries which have not found any cases of BSE should now consider adopting more stringent measures," Speedy said."

Then the FAO recomendations are made, as quoted above, including:

- "Specified risk materials (brains, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord, etc.) should be removed from all beef and sheep carcasses over 12 and 6 months respectively."



THIS is going to cost big money to fix, and it is time Ottawa gives back some of the 9 Bil. net we have sent there yearly, for many years.

We have a disaster in every way it can be looked at, so Ottawa needs to cough up 90%, as our agreements state they are obligated to do, or subtract it from our transfer payments to Ottawa.

THIS is a hardball game, not for those weak of heart or easily distracted or intimidated.

I believe the government in Power, both our Honourable Klein and McClellan, have the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done, but they need to get on with resolving where we are going.

THE longer these issues remain outstanding, the more our communities will be destroyed!

[charliep]

Not disagreeing with ideas Tom4cwb. It is a significant change to how processing will be done and our competitiveness with the US. A major component will be changing by products from something that had value to something that has to be paid to be disposed of. Can this stuff be used as fertilizer/organic matter?

The US is also under strain as they know that what happens here will be the rules they will live by down the road.

[cakadu]

The new regulations are a start and I am glad that they are looking more seriously at this matter. Personally, I don't think that any rendered animal parts should end up in feed that is destined for animals that will eventually end up in the human food chain - whether they be from ruminants or not, feeding non-ruminants or not. There are going to have to be other means of finding protein sources for these feedstuffs. With what we are going through right now, I just cannot see any justification for doing so. Can anybody provide some justification, other than it is a cheap source of protein?

Looking down the road, I see a time when dead animals will have to be disposed of through either incineration or putting them through one of those bio digesters and "treating" them, with the resulting materials being rendered essentially harmless.

I was fortunate to go and see one of these biodigesters at work this past week and they were saying that it is possible to put the dead animals through a masculator (sp?) and then into the digester and it's processes. The ony caution that the people promoting the digesters have is that there have not been any scientific studies showing that the prions can be destroyed and until such time as there are, then they cannot make any claims about the prions. If that is the case, their suggestion would be to have the resulting materials taken to Swan Hills and disposed of there.

It seems like these digesters will be the future, both in terms of dealing with rendered animals and with manure. By putting the manure through the digester, you can access several income paths that will add value to the farm, plus help to deal with the manure problem.

Treating manure - either through composting or this digester - is going to have to be done so that there will be less food safety problems and less harm to the environment i.e. our waterways.

[ValueChainFX]

cakadu who were you talking to about the digestors and where did you see one operational. We have been looking at this technology and would be interested in talking to anyone that has worked with them (and there are lots of people working on them LOL)

But you are right we need to work on ways of making the system better!

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

I see Goodale is quoted as saying on CBC:

"In an open letter Tuesday to all Saskatchewan news editors, the Saskatchewan MP and former agriculture minister said international bans on Canadian beef are not based on science.

Such a trend may encourage other countries not to test their cattle or report diseases for fear of the consequences.

"It's painfully obvious: You cannot count on science or fairness, so you better not test your cattle and you better not report any diseases, because the results will be devastating," he wrote.

The OIE (the international agency for animal health issues) should be worried that every other country will adopt the "Triple-S" approach to avoid animal health issues: "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up!" said Goodale.

Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Clay Serby says he was "astonished" by the letter, and that it reflects the minister's frustration."


In the light of the above FAO recomendations, Goodale is not being helpful or furthering our case in opening our border with Japan.

We may end up being the ones who must "Shoot, Shovel, and Shutup" when a slaughter of 30-40% of our own CDN breeding herd is required to be destroyed.

What I do not understand is;

Do we not expect we will be required to meet the same rigerous standard Japan expects of themselves, if we are expecting Japan to open it's border to CDN Beef?

Isn't it hypocritical to not allow Japan to export to Canada, when Japanese standards are much higher in BSE survelience than CDN standards?

Are we not acting with dishonour and like a bunch of spoiled brats?

[charliep]

Look in the Beef chat area for a further discussion/Japanese view. They made reference to the following link.

http://www.ca.emb-japan.go.jp/BSEdoc.html

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

I see this on DTN Aug 1;

"U.S. food officials say they think Canadian beef is safe, and praise Canada's efforts to ensure that its BSE case was isolated. Still, the border remains closed, for reasons that Canadian officials claim are political, not scientific, says the newspaper.

That political obstacle appears to be Japan, which has threatened to ban beef imports from the U.S. if that USDA reopens the border to Canadian beef or cattle.

Japanese agriculture minister Yoshiyuki Kamei told his Canadian counterpart, Lyle Vanclief, this week that Japan won't end its ban until Canada's scrutiny of its herd matches the standards that Japan adopted two years ago, following its own BSE outbreak.

Such measures would involve BSE-testing every beef carcass destined for human consumption -- a costly exercise that Canadian officials say isn't warranted given that BSE seems to spread only from cattle older than those that Canada slaughters for meat exports."

Japan has a good point, why are we not listening?

Obviously we can resolve this BSE issue, IF we get on with the new reality we live in... what is the hold up?