BSE origin confirmed

[Muttley]

I kind of got a kick out of an Americain news cast last night. They were interviewing a person on the danger of BSE in the human food chain.
The person stated that there was no danger to Americains in eating beef as the chances of contracting a BSE related illness was next to none.

Amazing how safe BSE meat is when it's their cattle instead of ours in Canada.

[rodb]

I agree with many of the statements in this thread. I marvel at how the NCBA has stated since it was a Canadian cow that "we are still clear of BSE". The US needs to do a few things such as develope a SRM program and segregate 30 month and older cattle in their system. With all the Canadian Cattle that have gone down there in the last 6 years and if Canada is the possible source of their lone BSE case they need to do alot of things to bring up their standards. After all is said and done, at least our one confirmed case did not get into the human food chain as theirs did.

If we are to test every animal it should be every animal over 30 months of age, as the chances of it happening or being diagnosed in animals under 30 months of age is infintesamal.

Who beleives that the border should be shut to US beef products until the USA implements the same standards that they imposed on Canadian Beef?

[kato]

Personally, I don't think the US is off the hook yet.

Regardless of where it came from, they still had a BSE cow. We dodged the bullet with that cow back a few years ago by hunting down every animal that had been with it, and every imported animal in the country. I don't see anyone down south setting up appointments to kill any cattle yet. If they were to go to the same lengths we did with that British cow, they would track down every imported Canadian cow, and slaughter it. The simple fact is that they can not do it.

Over the last couple of years, I have heard from more than one cattle buyer that one of the first things that happens to our CCIA tags is that they get taken out and thrown away. "The Americans couldn't care less about our tag system" was the general opinion. I wonder if they care now?

[cowman]

Grassfarmer: I don't think I should give out a name as this farmer is quite a large purebred Limo breeder. Maybe I should have said the product was cheap in the sense that it was a high end product that he couldn't get here...or more bank for his buck kind of thing. He told me this sometime in June so I don't remember all the details...just that he was very concerned.
Rod: I think we've done the right thing by limiting the American imports to the same restrictions they have on us. The science supports it. Now if they stop our imports of boneless/under 30 mo. stuff then what can we do? There goes the science right out the window and we are in a trade war.
Hopefully the Americans will understand we are now in this together and we need to stand together not apart.

[jensend]

according to today's usda update the tag in question was a metal clip so i dont think were talking ccia here. it could still be traced to a particular farm depending on whats stamped on it. this thing has a long way to go before anybody's neck goes in the noose.

[cowman]

Bruce: The cow was an imported Salers cow. The owner was Ray Depalme just west of Red Deer Alberta. They slaughtered the whole herd and the adjoining neighbors too.
Depalme got some pretty decent compensation both from the federal government and from the All Breeds Association. I believe it was around $4,000/animal. Which was probably justified as he had perhaps the premier Salers herd in Canada. His son has repopulated the farm.

[cowman]

I think the small metal clip type of tag is pretty standard for export breeding stock. TB or bangs test I believe?

[rodb]

It is amazing to me that it took over two weeks to find this tag. If it indeed was with this cow at slaughter why did it take so long before CFIA was notified. I hope that their is a further investigation than what looks like a quick attempt to white wash a bad situation for the US beef industry.

We need the US beef market to remain vibrant but this shoddy finger pointing is not going to sholve anything

Rod

[pandiana]

rsomer: I heard one report that said that the US banned 'additive' to feed sooner than Canada. Do you know if this is true?

[Bruce14]

Thanks cowman. If I remember correctly, when the Depalme herd was slaughtered there was also a herd in the U.S. that had imports from the same U.K. herd and that herd was put down.

It's not clear in my mind but thought you might recall. Funny how we remember something years ago but can't remember what we had for lunch yesterday.

[rodb]

Pandiana
The US ban on ruminant to ruminant was after ours. Hope this helps.

[rsomer]

pandiana: The Canadian Ruminant Ingredient Feed Ban (Health of Animals Act) banned the feeding of ruminant protein effective August 4, 1997. The U.S. banned feeding ruminant protein on the same day August 1997 except the US allowed the use of products believed to pose a minimal risk of BSE transmission. These products included blood, blood products, gelatin, milk, milk products, protein derived solely from swine and equine sources, and inspected meat products which have been offered for human food and further heat processed for food, such as plate waste from restaurants and other institutions. The U.S issued a full ban on December 2000.

On December 7, 2000, APHIS prohibited all imports of rendered animal protein products from Europe, regardless of species. In December 2000, the CFIA suspended the importation of rendered animal material of any species from any country that Canada does not recognize as free of BSE. Before these dates ruminant protein from Europe could be imported but it was not to be used in rations for ruminants.

See: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/feebet/rumin/ruminbge.shtml

I believe there was a Washington feed plant found guilty and fined for including ruminant protein in its feed materials in June of this year. I have not been able to find a link to verify this. The USDA claims to have 99% compliance with its feed ban.

[cowman]

Rod: When you consider that the cow was slaughtered on Dec. 9 and they finally announced she had BSE on the 23rd, maybe they weren't all that slack with the tag issue? Consider how long it took before we even got our BSE cow tested, about 4 months or something? I am sort of disgusted with the suggestion that the Americans just cut out and toss away our Canadian ID tags! Haven't our cattle associations explained to them what they are for? Do they have any concept of how a traceback works? Well I guess they will soon be learning! lol

[pandiana]

rsomer, thanks for the link. I noted that Canada also allows feeding of some ruminant material as seen in the excerpt from the above link.

Which animal proteins are exempt from the feed ban and can be fed to ruminants?

Pure porcine and equine proteins.
Poultry and fish proteins.
Milk, blood, and gelatin, and non-protein animal products such as rendered animal fats (e.g. beef tallow, lard, poultry fat).
I must admit that this makes me nervous. What do they know about milk protein or protein contaminants in other material?

[cowman]

Pandianna: Do you ever get the feeling that meat production is sort of unsafe when we are feeding all this garbage to our animals? I mean pig guts, chicken guts, fish guts? How much of this garbage contains antibiotics, mercury etc.? Now I assume our "experts have considered all the consequences and have come to the conclusion that all is well and these practices are safe? Maybe sort of like it was safe to feed old cows to other cows a few years back?
The more I hear about modern science and modern "experts" the more leery I get about all our food! When I hear things like the post on pinkeye where Muttley said his vet told him to be careful about feeding recently sprayed crops, I start to wonder what in the hell are we doing? I mean my neighbor sprayed his wheat pre-emergence, once for broad leafed weeds and once pre-harvest! Then combined it about ten days later. Apparently it went #1 and will enter the human food chain...so the vet says don't feed recently sprayed feed to your cattle because it is detrimental to their health...but it is okay to feed it to humans?
The more I consider these things the better organic looks to me?