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Don't open the door to mad cow
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial
Published January 26, 2005
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The timing couldn't have been worse. Soon after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would allow Canadian beef into the country again, our northern neighbor reported two more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow) disease. Then a scientific study found that the altered protein thought to cause the disease may not be confined to the brain and nervous system of infected animals as once thought.
This could be a double whammy for the American beef industry if agriculture officials don't act promptly. Yet the USDA is oddly lackadaisical about the threat. The final rule that reopens the border to beef imports allows "the possibility of more (mad cow) cases to appear in Canada," said USDA spokesman Jim Rogers. "This is not outside what is expected."
The use of cattle byproducts in feed is now banned in Canada (as it has been in the United States), but a recent study by the Montana Stockgrowers Association found that as much as half of Canadian feed still contains the outlawed material.
American ranchers, who oppose Canadian imports, may be acting in their own self-interest because without the competition, domestic cattle prices have risen sharply. But they also have a point. While the risk of contracting the human equivalent of mad cow disease by eating beef is extremely remote, consumers could be scared off by the bad publicity. Canadian ranchers should be held to the same standards as their American counterparts.
If anything, USDA officials should be reassuring consumers by strengthening slaughter regulations and doing more testing on carcasses. As it is, the agency tests less than 1 percent of the beef supply. Slaughterhouses in this country do follow certain rules, such as removing the brains and spinal cords of slaughtered animals because that tissue is considered most likely to harbor the disease. But a recent study suggests it may not be enough.
The journal Science reported that researchers found the mad cow protein in other organs of infected mice, implying that the disease could also spread throughout the bodies of cattle that contract the disease.
It makes little sense to open the border to beef imports until the USDA is sure that Canada has mad cow disease under control.
[Last modified January 26, 2005, 00:12:14]
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial
Published January 26, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The timing couldn't have been worse. Soon after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would allow Canadian beef into the country again, our northern neighbor reported two more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow) disease. Then a scientific study found that the altered protein thought to cause the disease may not be confined to the brain and nervous system of infected animals as once thought.
This could be a double whammy for the American beef industry if agriculture officials don't act promptly. Yet the USDA is oddly lackadaisical about the threat. The final rule that reopens the border to beef imports allows "the possibility of more (mad cow) cases to appear in Canada," said USDA spokesman Jim Rogers. "This is not outside what is expected."
The use of cattle byproducts in feed is now banned in Canada (as it has been in the United States), but a recent study by the Montana Stockgrowers Association found that as much as half of Canadian feed still contains the outlawed material.
American ranchers, who oppose Canadian imports, may be acting in their own self-interest because without the competition, domestic cattle prices have risen sharply. But they also have a point. While the risk of contracting the human equivalent of mad cow disease by eating beef is extremely remote, consumers could be scared off by the bad publicity. Canadian ranchers should be held to the same standards as their American counterparts.
If anything, USDA officials should be reassuring consumers by strengthening slaughter regulations and doing more testing on carcasses. As it is, the agency tests less than 1 percent of the beef supply. Slaughterhouses in this country do follow certain rules, such as removing the brains and spinal cords of slaughtered animals because that tissue is considered most likely to harbor the disease. But a recent study suggests it may not be enough.
The journal Science reported that researchers found the mad cow protein in other organs of infected mice, implying that the disease could also spread throughout the bodies of cattle that contract the disease.
It makes little sense to open the border to beef imports until the USDA is sure that Canada has mad cow disease under control.
[Last modified January 26, 2005, 00:12:14]
