Canada Confirms Case of Mad Cow Disease - Washington Post 1/23/06

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Washington Post

 

*Canada Confirms Case of Mad Cow Disease*

 

By ROB GILLIES

The Associated Press

Monday, January 23, 2006; 5:58 PM

 

TORONTO -- A cow from an Alberta farm has tested positive for mad cow

disease, officials said Monday, raising fears for a beef industry still

struggling to recover from a U.S. decision in 2003 to ban cattle imports.

 

Dr. Brian Evans, Canada's chief veterinary officer, said the disease was

found in a 6-year-old animal that did not enter the human food or

animal-feed systems.

 

The positive test could be a blow to Canadian ranchers who were hard hit

after the United States banned Canadian cattle imports in May 2003

following the country's first case of mad cow disease. The U.S. border

reopened in July to Canadian cattle younger than 30 months.

 

U.S. officials said the latest case will not prompt a similar ban on

Canadian beef imports.

 

"I am confident in the safety of beef and in the safeguards we and our

approved beef trading partners have in place to protect our food

supply," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a statement.

 

Canadian officials and ranchers were worried, however, about the

ramifications of the latest case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or

mad cow disease, a degenerative cattle nerve illness linked to the rare

and fatal human nerve disorder, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

 

Industry officials said the cow's age meant it could have contracted the

disease by eating feed left over after a 1997 ban on the use of cattle

parts in feed.

 

Evans said an extensive investigation is underway. He said the

experiences of other countries show that very small amounts of feed

purchased before the ban can remain or be retained on farms and lead to

infection many years later.

 

"The fact that this animal would have been infected after the 1997

introduction of our feed ban is notable, but it is also consistent with

the experiences observed around the world where BSE has been detected

and where feed bans have been implemented," Evans said.

 

Stan Eby, president of the 90,000-member Canadian Cattlemen's

Association, said a minuscule amount of pre-1997 feed could be

responsible for the latest case.

 

But it's more common for animal feed to be used right away, according to

the feed industry.

 

"Normally, feed is stored a limited amount of time, once it gets to the

farm, and is consumed rather quickly," said Randy Gordon, spokesman for

the U.S. National Grain and Feed Association. "We don't know the

particulars on this."

 

An investigation in Britain suggested that some cases there resulted

from feed residue on bins that had not been cleaned since before the

United Kingdom banned cattle remains in cattle feed.

 

Eby said Canada has tested 87,000 cattle and that four cases of mad cow

disease have been found in Canada since May 2003. Another cow exported

to the United States also tested positive.

 

Canadian beef recently returned to some supermarket shelves in Tokyo

following the lifting of a two-year ban on imports. Japanese officials

agreed to allow beef from North America back into the marketplace _

provided it came from animals younger than 21 months.

 

Entry into Japan is considered key to the long-term recovery plan of

Canada's battered beef industry, which lost $5.7 billion in the scare.

 

Cattle officials hope Pacific Rim countries will help reduce their

reliance on the U.S. market, which consumes the vast majority of

Canada's beef exports.

 

More than 150 people have died of the disease, most in the United

Kingdom, where there was an outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s.