Canada Finds Suspected New Case of Mad Cow

Government Says
Animal Did Not Enter Human Food System

By COLIN McCLELLAN, AP

OTTAWA (Dec. 30) - Canada has found what may be a second case of mad cow disease, officials said Thursday, just a day after the United States said it planned to reopen its border to Canadian beef.

The border was closed 19 months ago when a cow in northern Alberta tested positive for mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday the border could be opened in March.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency released few details on the new suspect case, except to identify it as a 10-year-old dairy cow.
The preliminary testing results were completed on Wednesday, said the agency, adding that the testing was conducted after the cow was identified as a "downer" - unable to walk.

The finding is not definitive, but the CFIA says multiple screening tests have yielded positive results. No part of the animal entered the human food or animal feed systems, said the agency.

Samples are currently being analyzed at the Canadian Science Center for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg, Manitoba and confirmation is expected in three to five days.

The CFIA said U.S. authorities have been notified of the tests and added that the government's normal policy is to report only confirmed results.

"However, given the unique situation created by the United States' border announcement . . . it was decided that the most prudent action would be to publicly announce the available information and provide stakeholders with a full understanding of the current situation," said the CFIA.

The new U.S. policy announced Wednesday will permit imports of cattle younger than 30 months and certain other animals and products from Canada, which the Agriculture Department said has effective measures to prevent and detect mad cow disease.

The department said the ruling, which will take effect March 7, came after determining Canada is a "minimal-risk region," the first country recognized as such.

Since confirming BSE in Canada in 2003, CFIA officials have stated that finding more cases in North America was possible.

Dennis Laycraft of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association said Thursday he expected the border to reopen on schedule because the finding, if positive for BSE, would still fall within U.S. guidelines maintaining Canada as a minimal risk country.

"It's a little unbelievable in terms of the timing within a few hours of the U.S. announcement," Laycraft said. "But early indications are that things will continue to move ahead."

BSE is a chronic, degenerative disorder affecting the central nervous system of cattle. Since it was first diagnosed in Great Britain in 1986, there have been more than 180,000 cases.

Before the trade ban, animals regularly crossed the border and Canada sold more than 70 percent of its live cattle to the U.S. That market was worth US$1.5 billion in 2002.

12/30/04 10:07 EST
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.

Canadian Officials Find
2nd Suspected Case of Mad Cow Disease

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: December 31, 2004

ORONTO, Dec. 30 - Canadian food officials said Thursday that they may have found a second cow with mad cow disease only a day after the Bush administration issued a ruling reopening the border to young live cattle imports for the first time since May 2003.

Officials of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency cautioned that tests on the sick animal, a 10-year-old dairy cow from Alberta Province, were still preliminary and not conclusive. But the report came as another potential blow to a Canadian cattle industry that has suffered estimated losses of $4 billion due to closed world markets since the discovery of the first sick cow in Alberta nearly two years ago.

Canadian officials stressed that the animal, which died this month, had not entered the human food supply and that conclusive tests would be completed by early next week.

Many of Canada's most important trade partners shut their borders to Canadian beef and other beef products over the past 19 months. But Washington's ban last year produced the most bitterness for Canadian cattlemen, who argue that cattle ranching practices on both sides of the border are virtually identical and that shutting out Canadian beef was nothing more than protectionism.

So far, officials in Ottawa and Washington have played down the importance of the sick cow and have tried to ease fears that the case could produce more trade friction. But officials in the American lobby group R-CALF, which has fought efforts to reopen the border to Canadian beef imports, has promised to work to rescind the new ruling, and the new finding of a sick cow could help their case in court.

Canadian officials told the United States Department of Agriculture of the preliminary results before Washington's announcement on Wednesday. American officials said the border would be open on March 7 to Canadian cattle below the age of 30 months. The department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said that even if the dairy cow proves positive for mad cow disease, a brain-wasting disease also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, it would not alter implementation of the new rule.
"U.S.D.A. is confident that the animal and public health measures that Canada has in place," combined with American safeguards, "provide the utmost protections to U.S. consumers and livestock," said Ron DeHaven, administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency noted in a statement that the sick cow had been born before 1997, when Canada and the United States instituted bans on feed that contain rendered cattle parts as a defense against mad cow disease. Since feed precautions were taken, the infection rate has been small.
If the disease is confirmed in this case, the statement continued, "consumption of contaminated feed before 1997 remains the most likely route of transmission."

Canadian cattlemen, who just a day before had thrown their cowboy hats in the air in celebration, expressed frustration with the news.

"We're disappointed we may have found another one, but it was inevitable that we would find another one. And I think it's inevitable the United States will find another one - one or two or four or five - in the next few years," said Bill Jameson, president of Jameson, Gilroy & B & L Livestock Ltd., a cattle brokerage firm in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

But he added, "The U.S.D.A. say it's a nonissue. And it should be a nonissue, because all the specified risk materials - like the brain, spinal cord and retina of the eye - are removed anyway" when cattle are slaughtered for human consumption.

Milk feed linked to sixth mad cow

SAPPORO (Kyodo) The agriculture department of the Hokkaido Prefectural Government confirmed Tuesday that the sixth cow infected with mad cow disease was fed a milk substitute similar to the one given to all five cows previously found suffering from the disease.

A dairy farmer in Shibecha, Hokkaido, raised the Holstein on nine types of feed, including Miru Food A Super, the department said, confirming an announcement by the town's agricultural cooperative Jan. 20.

The milk substitute was produced at a factory in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, that manufactured the feed given to the first five cows found with the brain-wasting disease also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

The sixth cow was sold to a Wakayama farmer on Feb. 17, 1999, according to the report by the prefectural agriculture department. The health ministry confirmed on Jan. 19 that the animal was infected with mad cow disease.
Four days later, the ministry confirmed that a seventh cow, also raised in Hokkaido, has been infected with mad cow disease. Hokkaido public health department officials suspect the cow consumed the same type of feed.
The first five cows had been fed either Miru Food A or a similar brand, called Pure Milk, that has nearly identical ingredients. Pure Milk is also made by the Gunma factory.

The feed was found to have included animal fat made in the Netherlands, which has also experienced an outbreak of mad cow disease. The causal relationship between the feed and the infections has not been determined.
The sixth cow produced a female calf in January 1999 that was killed in February 2002 after suffering an injury, according to the report.

The Japan Times: Jan. 29, 2003