Another Mad Cow Suspected Cases

[crossfield_beef]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/08/23/mad-cow060-823.html
If it's not another Canadian Soldier getting killed by a suicide maniac, it's another case of Mad Cow.
Details below
Canada reports new case of mad cow disease
Last Updated Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:25:17 EDT
CBC News
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed a new case of mad cow disease in Alberta on Wednesday.

It is Canada's fifth case in 2006 and the eighth since 2003, when the disease was first found in this country, officials said.

This year's total has included two other cows from Alberta and one each from British Columbia and Manitoba.

Fear of infection has disrupted Canada's beef and cattle exports for long periods, even though the number of cases is dwarfed by those in Britain and some of the two dozen other countries where the disease has been found.

CFIA said the latest dead cow is believed to have been old enough to have contracted the disease — known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE — before Canada banned the use of cattle parts in cattle feed.

The disease is thought to be spread mainly in contaminated feed. It attacks its victims through hard-to-destroy protein forms called prions, which can multiply in the brain, reducing it to a spongy wreck.

The risk of transmission to humans who consume meat from infected animals remains unclear.

No part of the latest cow's carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems, CFIA said.
Say--I scooped farmers_son again.
Whatever happened to him? I didn't like him and his liberal ideas anyway.

[coppertop]

thanks for the news item. It is the #3 item on the news on the station I listen to this morning, so that's a plus. It shows the system is working, and any further delay in getting OTM beef across the border is politics just as it has been for the past several years.

[PureCountry]

Gee, wonder when someone's going to clue into the fact that plenty could get into the food chain, since we're not testing EVERY animal. Oh well, let's just keep plugging ahead riding the coattails of the Americans. Nothing like living off of the crumbs from someone else's table.

[Ron]

Yes, since the more animals we test the more we find, does this mean we are still missing animals by not testing 100%
My in-laws are all vegetarians and I get an earful at every family gathering of the dangers of beef.

[coppertop]

I had a long discussion with a city friend yesterday. She commented that she isn't sure it's safe to eat beef with all the cases of BSE showing up.
I explained the testing process to her so she seemed to be at peace with the fact that beef is safe to comsume.

I wonder what the actual beef consumption is now compared to the latter part of 2003 when the consumption had increased do to overwhelming public support for the beef industry.

[jensend]

canada is trying to go middle of the road by testing to keep market credibility but not so much testing as to destroy american beef safety credibility. if our consumers ever become dissatisfied because we're testing enough to keep finding positives but not testing to find every positive we're in trouble. eventually we'll have to suck it up, test all otm's and dare the americans to close the border again because they want to hide their cases. if we want to deal with this situation we should deal with it; otherwise our livelihoods will be destroyed by harmonization with the usa. i don't guess they'd mind that too much.

[Willowcreek]

It is hurting demand in the US too...Every US Consumer publication comes out with a new article every time a new Canadian mad cow of the month appears- or sends out e-mail alerts...The last I saw from Food Insider last week really dwelt on the numbers found so far ( and in such a short time), the dangers of the 50 month cow, and the rapidity that they were being found....

Then they include a paragraph about how the USDA is still importing beef from Canada- and has not followed the consumer groups recommendations of closing loopholes, increasing testing, proper SRM removal, and banning high risk countries...

[grassfarmer]

And how has it affected US beef consumption?? My guess would be about as much as anybody is listening to R-CALF - ie zero!

[Willowcreek]

Its affecting the demand and consumption to some extent...Its definitely changing the buying and eating trends... More all natural- grass fed- US sourced programs starting up or expanding...

Most of these consumer publications are promoting US sourced/grassfed beef as the safe alternative.

The problem is- grassfed is not the strongpoint of the US as genetically overall we have went toward grain fed cattle, and don't have the vast expanses of grass to compete with countries like Australia, Argentina, and Brazil...

I have a fear the continuing Canadian BSE saga/ with the USDA still allowing imports will over time make a change in the trends of the consuming public that will affect us for a long time...

[grassfarmer]

So why don't you start importing some young, top quality grassfed beef from Canada? - It's what your customers want, we can produce it and it's entirely safe. Grassfed is the way of the future, of that I'm convinced.

[spudchucker]

As a Canadian currently living in Colorado, I can't recall seeing much about mad cow down here. I think I saw a 3 line blurb in USA today once. From what I can see, it is pretty much a non issue here.

[Willowcreek]

I guess you don't consider the Wall Street Journal as being a very big publication-eh...

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Canada Mad-Cow Case Shows Safeguard Lapse



By TAMSIN CARLISLE

Wall Street Journal

August 28, 2006



CALGARY, Alberta -- The case of a relatively young Canadian mad cow points up the difficulties of enforcing feed bans to curb the spread of the disease.



Last week Canadian officials, in their investigation of a 50-month-old Alberta dairy cow diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, on July 13, concluded that the problem arose from contaminated feed -- years after feed safeguards were put into place. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it has launched an investigation into enforcement of its feed restrictions.



The dairy cow was the youngest animal in Canada so far diagnosed with BSE, a fatal brain-wasting disease. Other cases involved older animals that contracted the disease before cattle-feed restrictions were put into place to prevent the spread of the disease, which can have a years' long incubation period.



The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement Thursday that one commercial feed facility "may have permitted contamination of a single batch of cattle feed with prohibited material." It didn't identify the manufacturing facility or farm involved but said the entire batch was shipped to the infected cow's farm.



In an interview Friday, an agency spokesman said the incident may have involved failure to flush equipment between processing runs, leading to contamination of cattle feed with material derived from dead cattle or other ruminant animals such as sheep or goats.



Both Canada and the U.S. instituted tougher cattle-feed regulations in August 1997, in response to the discovery that cattle most commonly contract mad-cow disease by ingesting ground-up remains of infected animals. Under the ban, cattle could no longer be given a diet that contained such remains, which previously had been added to feed as a protein boost. However, up until this June, Canada continued to allow feed prepared for nonruminant animals such as pigs and chickens to contain ruminant remains.



The apparent lapse in the feed safeguards could exacerbate U.S. concerns about Canadian beef and cattle imports, possibly delaying or even jeopardizing a long-awaited U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that proposes to allow imports of cattle over 30 months old from countries considered at "minimal risk" for BSE. Imports of cattle under 30 months and the beef that comes from them are already allowed into the U.S. because the risk with younger animals is considered very low.



In a statement Friday, the USDA said it will factor the Canadian findings into its risk assessment for the rule change.



Humans can contract a form of the disease by consuming contaminated beef.



Canada has so far discovered eight indigenous cases of BSE, including its latest one last week, while the U.S. has discovered three cases, including one in a cow imported from Canada. In 2003, the U.S. banned all imports of Canadian beef in response to the first Canadian BSE case but quickly resumed most beef imports.





online.wsj.com

[coppertop]

And how many cows have been tested in the US for BSE ????

[Willowcreek]

coppertop posted Aug 28, 2006 16:13
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And how many cows have been tested in the US for BSE ????

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The last figure I saw was over 650,000...

[spudchucker]

I don't read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis so I didn't see the article. The local store doesn't carry it either. I am a little curious as to why the story didn't come out until the 28th when the mad cow was confirmed on the 23rd. Could someone have been pushing them to write the article?
If we keep weeding these cows out, sooner or later we will put the disease behind us.