BSE origin confirmed

[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?

[rodb]

Cowman
Their time to test was probably as good as it gets considering the technology being used. However that cow was in the Human food chain compared to where ours was tanked so the urgency may have been different. What I marveled at was the fact that they would of had the head and I assume at some point the ears that held the tags, that they found two weeks later.

[cowman]

Well Rod, you are right. A condemned cow doesn't require the emergency that one going into the food chain does. Hopefully that sort of thing won't happen again and that both countries will adopt a wait and hold policy on any downer cows. They have a big PR job ahead of them.
Perhaps now we can start to work together. From what I have heard their food safety people and ours are basically on the same page on this one. Now if we can just keep the politicians and media from meddling and let our scientists and theirs solve this thing, we might come out of it with a solution. Right now we have to put our faith in our food safety professionals and hope they get it right. Personally I have been very impressed with Brian Evans. He comes across as very professional and as a man of the utmost integrity. And I was also impressed with the American head vet.

[kato]

I was also impressed with Dr. Evans. Just think how great it would be if our government had a few more like him. Especially if they were Ministers (Prime or otherwise)