Cattle arrive from Canada all the time in these parts. They come to livestock auction barns for sale and are sent to U.S. slaughterhouses to be turned into steaks and hamburger. Now it appears the cross-border cattle trade has brought a big problem as well, with the tentative conclusion that a Washington dairy cow infected with mad cow disease came from Canada.
Although knowing the probable origin of the Holstein with the disease is a crucial clue to the puzzle of how the illness came into the U.S., it leaves several important questions unanswered, including:
– What kind of feed might have infected the animal and other cows in the herd? Canada and the U.S. imposed a ban in 1997 on the use of neurological materials from sheep, cows or deer in animal feed because they can transmit mad cow.
– Where did any contaminated feed come from?
– What about any living calves from the cow? While the risk of passing on mad cow to offspring is considered relatively small, it does exist, agriculture officials acknowledge.
Regardless of the answers, the U.S. should dramatically expand its mad cow testing program, consumer groups and other experts say.
All cattle that arrive at slaughterhouses unable to walk and all older cows that die on ranches of unknown causes–the animals at highest risk–should be tested for the malady, several groups advise. Only relatively small numbers of animals are tested now.
`What else do we need?’
“It’s time to look at our procedures and say, `What else do we need in the way of safeguards now that we have mad cow disease here?'” said Linda Detwiler, a former Agriculture Department official who until recently coordinated an agency working group on mad cow and related illnesses.
A heated debate about how best to respond to the threat already has begun. The recommendations include vastly increased cattle testing; closing loopholes in 1997 feed regulations; and creating stricter standards ensuring that animal brains, spinal cords and other nervous system tissue, which when eaten can transmit the illness, do not enter the animal and human food supplies.
Many of the recommendations are controversial because they would require more money and effort and impose new regulations on the $175 billion U.S. cattle industry and related enterprises.
Now, however, there is a huge incentive to act. Since the Washington state cow was diagnosed last week, 90 percent of export markets for U.S. beef have shut their doors, citing safety concerns. Many of them, especially those in Europe and the Far East, have had experience with mad cow disease in their own homelands and have much stricter regulations than the U.S.
“The livestock industry and the USDA still hope this is an isolated case, but now they can’t avoid biting the bullet,” said John Stauber, co-author of “Mad Cow U.S.A.” “They may be able to convince the American public our food supply is safe, but they’re not going to be able to convince our export markets so easy. They’re going to have to show they’re taking actions necessary to protect consumers.”
`Downer’ cows an issue
Some groups such as the Humane Society of the United States are calling for a ban on slaughtering so-called downer cows that arrive at meatpackers unable to walk, an issue Congress took up early this year but did not resolve. Government officials last week said they were considering the issue.
“There is absolutely no reason that sick animals belong in the food supply,” said Nancy Donley, president of Safe Tables Our Priority, a consumer food safety advocacy group.
Companies such as McDonald’s agree. For more than 20 years the Oak Brook, Ill.-based corporation has prohibited meat suppliers from using “downer” cattle, spokeswoman Anna Rozenich said.
But cattle ranchers don’t want an absolute ban. Some “downer” cows merely have broken legs or minor illnesses. More than 180,000 cattle come to market each year unable to walk.
“We would prefer that farmers and ranchers never send an animal to market that cannot sustain the journey,” said Gary Weber, executive director for regulatory affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “But if they do, [the animals] should be held to extremely high standards of inspection and condemned if there is any doubt about the wholesomeness of the product.”
If an animal is tested for mad cow disease, cattle ranchers believe all meat and other products should be kept out of the food chain until results come in. That isn’t the current practice. The Washington Holstein that was found to have mad cow disease was butchered and delivered to meat processors before test results were available.
Greater testing abroad
Expanded testing has plenty of precedent. In Japan, every cow that goes to slaughter is tested for mad cow disease. In most of Europe, all cattle older than 30 months and most cattle that become incapacitated and unable to walk are tested. The turnaround on results usually is a matter of hours rather than days. Rapid tests are used instead of the older, more time-consuming tests available in the U.S.
The numbers tell the story. In 2002, European nations tested 11 million out of 40 million cows for mad cow, compared with 20,526 tested last in the U.S. year out 97 million. U.S. agriculture officials have proposed expanding the testing program to 38,000 cows next year.
“Since we have a positive [test result] in the U.S., we have to hugely increase the numbers of animals being tested to restore consumer confidence and discover the true extent of the problem here,” said Judd Aiken, a professor of animal health at the University of Wisconsin and an expert in prion diseases such as mad cow.
“If the results of this investigation [of mad cow in the U.S.] show a bigger problem than we’ve perceived, then yes, the science indicates there should be more testing,” said Weber of the cattlemen’s association. “Let’s wait and see what the next few weeks show.”
Some groups such as Consumers Union suggest that no rendered animal protein or bone meal should be included in cattle feed to guard against the possibility of transmission. The livestock industry dismisses the idea, suggesting it’s part of an “anti-meat” agenda. But many European nations have embraced it as an essential safeguard against mad cow disease, said Michael Hansen, senior research associate at Consumers Union.
Mechanized system problems
Another concern is “advanced meat recovery” systems used in slaughterhouses to strip meat from carcasses. Almost three-quarters of the plants using the powerful systems, designed to maximize the recovery of meat, have been found to have contaminated meat with central nervous system tissue, according to audits by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Several experts suggest the U.S. should tighten oversight of the technology and ensure that contamination stops.
There also appears to be a growing consensus on the need for a national identification system for cattle in the U.S., a program that would mark each calf when it is born and track changes in ownership. The Agriculture Department and livestock producers have been designing a program that would capture information electronically and store data about all cattle in the U.S. in computer databases.
One sticking point has been protecting access to the data. There are concerns about would-be terrorists knowing where all the cattle in the U.S. were based, and a rancher or feedlot would not want competitors getting the information, Weber said.
Still, when the system is up and running, he said, it should take minutes or hours to trace a cow’s origins.
