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Topic: mad cow hits canada (Read 239 times)

east
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mad cow hits canada
« on: May 21^st, 2003, 8:35pm »

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Mad-cow hits Alberta

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030520.wcoww0520_4/ BNStory

By JORDAN HEATH-RAWLINGS
Globe and Mail Update

Related Links
What BSE is http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/bse.html

A case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as BSE or mad-cow disease, has been found in Alberta, federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief said Tuesday.

The news prompted the United States to quickly issue a ban on all Canadian beef and beef product imports.

Mr. Vanclief said at a press conference in Edmonton that one cow has been found and removed from the herd and the food distribution chain.

An Alberta meat inspector condemned the eight-year-old cow in a slaughterhouse believing that it had pneumonia on Jan. 31.

Because the symptoms that the animal displayed were consistent with pneumonia not BSE it was destroyed but not immediately tested. Instead, it was put into the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's surveillance program, which tests about 900 cattle carcasses a year for signs of BSE and 11 other diseases.

"Certainly, if there was a high probability of of [BSE] symptoms originally, it would have been tested immediately," said Dr. Greg Little, a veterinarian with the CFIA.

When the cow was finally tested at a federal laboratory last Friday, veterinarians suspected the presence of BSE and sent samples to another testing facility in Britain.

The positive results arrived back in Alberta Tuesday morning.

Mr. Vanclief stressed that the cow was completely removed from the slaughterhouse and did not go into the food supply.

"We have a very good testing system, and it worked," he said "It is important to stress that this is one cow ... and our surveillance is second to none in Canada and is extremely well regarded in the world."

The northern Alberta farm where the cow lived was quarantined as a precaution. When an investigation is completed, the 150-head herd will be destroyed.

Although Mr. Vanclief said that he had spoken to secretaries of agriculture in both the United States and Mexico, response from south of the border was swift.

The United States shut its borders to all imports of cattle and cattle products from Canada over the discovery, a statement from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said.

"USDA is placing Canada under its BSE restriction guidelines and will not accept any ruminants or ruminant products from Canada pending further investigation," the statement said. "We are dispatching a technical team to Canada to assist in the investigation and will provide more detailed information as it becomes available."

The inclusion of ruminants means that all shipments of sheep and goats are also banned.

Ms. Veneman went on to say that the "risk to human health and the possibility of transmission to animals in the United States is very low."

The possible risk to human health comes from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a fatal brain illness that humans can acquire by eating beef products from animals infected with BSE. Processed meat products made from cows infected with BSE carry a particularly high risk for transmitting the disease.

Since 1995, more than 100 people in the United Kingdom have died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

<bf> <nm>Mr. Vanclief said he had discussed the possibility of a U.S. ban on Canadian beef imports with Ms. Veneman and was assured that any such order would be temporary.

"This is a case of one cow out of 3.5 million, and it was pulled from the food chain," he said. "If there are any actions taken, they will be on a very temporary basis."

Alberta Agriculture Minister Shirley McLellan also said that she believes the ban won't last long.

"We need to be very open and let our trade partners know we are doing everything in a very transparent way," she said. "I think what [they] will understand is that our system does work."

Beef is Alberta's top agricultural export, accounting for 39 per cent of all Canadian beef exports.

Canadian beef and veal exports to the U.S. amounted to $1.67-billion last year, or 77 per cent of Canada's total beef exports.

"We take any threat to our livestock industry very seriously," Ms. McLellan said.

When asked if the news would have a long-term impact on Alberta beef, Mr. Vanclief replied: "No. I'm having beef for lunch."

In a statement issued Tuesday, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association agreed with Mr. Vanclief.

"This is an isolated case and poses no risk to the health of consumers of Canadian beef," the statement read. "The focus must be on determining how this one cow became infected."

Canada has one previous case of BSE on record. Another Alberta cow, which was imported from the United Kingdom, tested positive for the disease in December of 1993.

Officials from the CFIA are still trying to determine whether the orgin of the newest infected cow was foreign or domestic.

« Last Edit: May 24^th, 2003, 1:25am by east »

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Pocket
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Re: mad cow hits alberta
« Reply #1 on: May 22^nd, 2003, 12:44pm »

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Even one is too many. I hope it doesn't take them forever to trace this cow's history. When our food is contaminated by whatever means, it's frightening.

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Addams
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Re: mad cow hits alberta
« Reply #2 on: May 22^nd, 2003, 12:55pm »

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I agree with Pocket. I cannot trust the food I eat. I do not know how this disease spreads.

Therefore if we eat any beef it is only certified organic grain fed. But our daughter does not eat beef. She will be the first one to tell everyone. We do not permit it.

This illness was already happening in England and I don't trust that it won't spread ever. So my daughter does not eat beef. We don't permit it and it's now part of who she is.
We don't eat much or any red meat and are more focussed on complex carbohydrates and fruits and vegetables with plant based protein sources. It's not perfect and since children need to eat fish we feed her fish twice a week and she totally loves chicken which I try to limit portion size.

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Bumper
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Re: mad cow hits alberta
« Reply #3 on: May 22^nd, 2003, 4:17pm »

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Jeez,

I saw the title of this thread and my first thought was. . .

What's my ex-wife doing in Canada?? Shocked

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If U R reading these old posts, know that we were once a great, active cyber-community, but as in all things..Time moves on. This is now a Ghost Town.

east
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Re: mad cow hits alberta
« Reply #4 on: May 22^nd, 2003, 9:00pm »

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bumper! te juice from my orange nearly hit the screen!

ironically, earlier this week, i had already decided that i wanted to go back to being a veggie again. my sister is in england and has not had beef since the first outbreak. as far as they know, all it takes is for someone to step on a farm in england and then take a plane to north america and step onto another farm. this may seem overstated but if one cow in alberta, where some of the best world beef comes from... Lips Sealed

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east
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Re: mad cow hits canada
« Reply #5 on: May 24^th, 2003, 1:27am »

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Three B.C. farms quarantined over mad-cow

By JORDAN HEATH-RAWLINGS
Globe and Mail Update

Three farms in British Columbia have been added to a widening cattle quarantine by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as part of an effort to contain the spread of mad-cow disease in Canada.

Officials are trying to determine if poultry feed which contained the remains of an Albertan cow diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was fed to livestock on the farms.

Although poultry is not at risk of contracting the disease, any cattle that consumed the feed would be at risk of contracting BSE, and would have to be destroyed and tested by the CFIA.

"The CFIA has now put a total of 13 cattle herds in Canada under quarantine as a part of it's aggressive investigation into the origin of this case of BSE," Brian Evans, chief veterinarian at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told a news conference in Ottawa Friday afternoon.

"They [the B.C. cattle herds] were linked by inspectors with the distribution of feeds. They had a common source," Sylvie Farez, a veterinarian with the CFIA told globeandmail.com.

Dr. Evans told a news conference that the feed containing the remains of the diseased animal was shipped to the three quarantined farms in British Columbia one in Prince George and two in the Fraser Valley.

John van Dongen, B.C.'s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, said during a conference call with reporters Friday that he had learned that three cattle herds had been placed under quarantine and that his ministry was co-operating fully with CFIA efforts to track feed containing remains of the diseased cow.

The new B.C. quarantines raised the total of farms across Canada to 13 eight in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan and the three in British Columbia.

Pascal Moreau, a veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said it is standard procedure to process diseased animals. He said by the time a single animal's remains have been made into feed, it has been heavily diluted with grain and other ingredients.

In Canada and the United States, it has been illegal to feed cow or sheep protein to other cows and sheep since 1997, and that the ban was believed to have protected North American herds from the disease. However, experts say it may be time to look closely at expanding that ban to all animal protein.

"I don't think anybody screwed up in sending carcasses to renderers, but now that we are a BSE country this should be re-examined," said Neil Cashman, a prion expert at the Centre for Research and Neurodegeneration at the University of Toronto.

The herds in Alberta and Saskatchewan were quarantined on Thursday because they once owned the infected cow or its calves.

Dr. Evans also said that cattle belonging to the same herd as the diseased cow were slaughtered Thursday, and that their brain samples are being tested at a laboratory in Winnipeg with results expected within a few days.

"The investigation is advancing forward," he said. "But not the disease."

Dr. Evans added that inspectors are investigating two possible pathways the infected cow may have travelled. Once the test results start returning from the laboratory over the next few days, some of the quarantines will be lifted as conflicting possibilities are ruled out.

Although officials still don't know how the cow was infected originally, Dr. Evans did say it's possible that the disease occurred spontaneously.

If that is the case, he said, it isn't likely that officials will ever be able to pin down the time and place of the disease's orgin.

On Thursday, Marwyn Peaster, the farmer who owned the northern Alberta cow infected with mad-cow disease, said the animal was stumbling and unable to stand before it was shipped off for slaughter.

Mr. Peaster said the cow was shipped for slaughter when it could no longer get up on its own.

"The cow went down, and that is when it was shipped. The cow was still alive, it just wasn't getting up any more," Mr. Peaster said Thursday outside his farm near Wanham, Alta., about 550 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Such behaviour is a key identifier in BSE, commonly called mad-cow disease. As the disease attacks brain tissue, leaving it spongy and full of holes, victims become increasingly disoriented and have difficulty standing.

On Friday, Dr. Evans said that the cow was condemned "on the basis that it had all signs of pneumonia."

He added that all other cattle in the herd were standing and active when they were loaded onto trailers for testing Wednesday.

Mr. Peaster, who moved to northern Alberta from Mississippi several years ago, does not believe the cow contracted the disease from his farm. He purchased the cow, along with 69 other cows and calves, from a breeder in Lloydminster, Sask., on Aug. 23, 2002.

The investigation is also focusing on feed mills and rendering plants that might have provided contaminated feed up to six years ago.

Alberta Agriculture Minister Shirley McClellan insisted that the situation is not a disaster, even though a growing ban on Alberta beef from international markets has left packing houses and auction markets closed.

Indonesia said Thursday it will also refuse Canadian beef, joining the United States, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan, which had an outbreak of the disease in cattle last year.

Although questions have surfaced about the four-month period between the slaughter of the cow on January 31 and the discovery of BSE on Tuesday, Canadian officials continue to insist that because the cow was diagnosed with pneumonia and not BSE symptoms, it was not listed as a priority for testing.

On Friday, the head of the United States National Cattlemen's Beef Association sided with the Canadian inspectors.

"Under the inspection surveillance system we have down here, our turnaround time is eight days," Terry Stokes told globeandmail.com. "However, when you look at the testing protocol the Canadians have in place, [the cow] did not shows symptoms of BSE ... I understand that, as soon as it was suspected, tests were performed immediatly."

Mr. Stokes said that there has been very close communication between him and his Canadian counterparts, and "it appears, and we feel very confident that, the Canadian officials are being very open and responsible in dealing with this."

The human form of mad cow is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which causes paralysis and death. Scientists believe humans develop new variants of Creutzfeldt-Jakob when they eat meat from infected animals.

Paul Mayers, a spokesman for Health Canada, emphasized Friday that there is no reason for Canadians to be worried about eating beef at this time.

"To date, any risk related to human health remains low," he said.

With a report from Kim Lunman

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Re: mad cow hits canada
« Reply #6 on: May 27^th, 2003, 11:30am »

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Parts of the Canadian cow that recently tested positive for mad cow disease may have been used to make dry dog food that was shipped to the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday.

While there has been no scientific evidence so far that dogs can contract the disease or spread it to humans, the FDA notified Pet Pantry International of Carson City, Nevada, when the agency learned from the Canadian government that Pet Pantry had received food that may have included material from the cow.

The suspect dog food was made by Champion Pet Food of Morinville, Alberta, between February 4 and March 12, 2003.

The Canadian government prevented the cow being processed for human food. "Consumers can be assured that their food does not contain any remnants of the BSE positive cow," an FDA statement said.

As a "prudent measure" to help assure that the United States remains free of the brain-wasting disease known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Pet Pantry is asking customers to hold on to the suspected food so that it will not mistakenly be mixed into cattle or other feeds.

The Pet Pantry products were packed in 50-pound bags, distributed to franchises around the United States and sold by home delivery only, the FDA statement said. There was no retail distribution.

The products included "Maintenance Diet" labeled with a use-by date of February 17, 2004 and "Beef with Barley" with a date of March 5, 2004.

Consumers are asked not to destroy or discard the product themselves as the FDA is working with Pet Pantry to ensure proper disposal.

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