Live test for BSE announced today

[topper]

I see that Vacci-Test Corporation announced today that they have a live test for BSE. www.vacci-test.com

[grassfarmer]

Good for them, it was launched in Calgary so let's get at it! Lets be the first in the world to market BSE free beef- tested. This way we don't need the packer cartel to say they won't test because they don't have cooler space. It can be done at the feedlot presumably so what excuse have we got not to test?

[farmers_son]

The company is promoting the benefits of this test as not having to kill all the cows in the herds of origin of a BSE positive as we do now rather than an international marketing breakthrough.

I would think if BSE testing is used to sell beef why not use the much more reliable test on brain tissue of the slaughtered animal. The company makes it clear this test is not specific for BSE and there will be huge amount of false positives.

The only place we export live cattle to is the U.S. and given that they have BSE and we have BSE why would we spend money to test live cattle moving from Canada to the U.S. and vice versa any more than we would want to test live cattle moving from Alberta to Saskatchewan. The cost of that test will come out of our pockets. Given that we send more live cattle South than come North the Americans may insist on the test as a non tariff trade barrier rather than rationalize trade in live cattle between our two countries.

[intr3est]

I'm not sure if a DNA test for susceptibility would not be of more advantage. A DNA test would be for lifetime and not a snapshot of the present.