MAD COW NEWS

Technical Briefing and Webcast with U.S. Government Officials on BSE Situation

January 2, 2004

MR. ED CURLETT: I'd like to welcome everybody to the BSE situation update for today. Today we'll have Dr. Ron DeHaven, the chief veterinary officer for USDA, making a statement. We also have with us, from the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Sundlof, to answer questions as needed. And we also have with us Dr. Daniel Engeljohn with the Food Safety and Inspection Service. Again, because of the number of people on the call, particularly the audio bridge, we ask that you keep your questions just to one. And with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. DeHaven.

Thank you, sir.

DR. RON DEHAVEN (USDA): Thank you, Ed. And happy New Year to all of you, and thanks again for joining us.

Well, we did take the day off yesterday from media briefings. Our epidemiological work, of course, did continue. I'm going to provide you the latest information on that as well as some more information about how we are modifying our surveillance program.

First as to the epidemiological investigation, we have now confirmed that 81 of the 82 animals listed on the Canadian health certificate--and that would include the positive animal--entered the United States through the Oroville, Washington port on September 4, 2001. One of those 82 has now been confirmed on the ground at a Mattawa dairy facility operation which is now under state hold order. An inventory of that facility to look for possible additional Canadian animals is continuing, though we don't necessarily expect to find any. And in fact that has been delayed because of bad weather conditions in Mattawa today.

Just to recap where we are in tracing those 82 animals, we now have 11 of them definitively accounted for. One is the indexed positive cow; 9 are those known to be in the indexed herd; one is the animal that I mentioned on the Mattawa dairy operation. But we believe that one may still be in Canada. The whereabouts of the remaining 70 animals is still yet to be confirmed but, again, we have good leads on those, and we will keep you posted on that information as we gather it.

I want to reiterate that our interest in finding these cows is not because BSE can spread from cow to cow but because it's possible that they may have shared a common feed source when they were young, and therefore potentially would have had a common exposure. I think it's important to note, however, that even at the height of the outbreak of the disease in the United Kingdom it was uncommon to have more than just one or two animals in a herd found to be positive.

Also to clarify, we currently have three facilities under state hold orders, as our epidemiological investigation continues. The first is the index herd, that herd from which the positive cow departed immediately before slaughter. The second being a nearby facility that has the indexed cow recently born bull calf, and the third being that dairy operation in Mattawa.

We expect to have our DNA results from the indexed cow by sometime next week, and certainly we will share that information with you after we receive it and have an opportunity to analyze it.

Of course the Canadian laboratory is also running the DNA tests in their laboratory, and we are continuing to work very closely as we work--do our epidemiological work. Indeed, two Canadian epidemiologists are on the ground with us in the United States, and likewise USDA epidemiologists are in Canada.

This work would not be going nearly as well as it has been if we didn't have that close cooperation and partnership. So, again, our many thanks to our Canadian colleagues.

With regard to our surveillance program, given the secretary's announcement to prohibit nonambulatory or downer animals from going into slaughter establishments, a number of you have asked what the means will be in terms of capturing that population in terms of our surveillance program.

As we have discussed previously, we have tested 20,000 animals a year for the past two years, and approximately three-fourths of those animals were nonambulatory animals at slaughter.

Because this particular population of animals will no longer be coming to slaughter plants and no longer be going into the human food chain, we are working with industry representatives to reposition our efforts to collect those samples on the farm, at rendering facilities, and the so-called ‘three-D’--downed, dead, diseased animals--and those plants where those meat products are harvested for animal food and other nonedible purposes.

Of course, some number of those animals will arrive at slaughter and will become nonambulatory at slaughter. We'll continue to work to focus some of our efforts at collecting samples from those animals.

We are certainly committed, and the industry has shown a shared commitment to ensuring that we continue to have a very robust surveillance program for BSE in the United States. We will be working very closely with the rendering and other animal disposal industries as well as other government agencies in the days and weeks to come to ensure that we continue to have access to this particular population of animals which we consider to be those at the highest risk for BSE.

Indeed, on Wednesday of this week we had separate meetings with representatives from the dairy, the feed, and the rendering industries. Today we are hosting an interagency meeting--all-day meeting--at our facility in Riverdale, Maryland. And on Monday there will be an interagency and industry representative meeting to continue to develop our surveillance program.

As we talk about surveillance, and indeed a lot of emphasis is going on modifying our surveillance system to be consistent with the Secretary's announcements, I want to point out that testing in and of itself does not make food any safer. Rather, surveillance testing tells us if, number one, a disease is present and, if it is, what is the prevalence of the disease. The most important food safety measures, the ones that make our U.S. beef safe as it relates to BSE, is removal of the specified risk materials from human food and the AMR requirements. And those are exactly the announcements the Secretary made earlier this week.

Even those actions were taken out of an abundance of caution knowing that we do have, if at all, a very low prevalence of the disease in North America or in the U.S.

With that, since my colleagues from FSIS and FDA have no update announcement to give, let's go to the questions.

And Ed, we can start with the telephone bridge? Okay. So, Operator, the first question from the telephone bridge, please...

.Followed by Q&A with reporters.

Third Cattle Herd Quarantined in Washington The U.S. Agriculture Department has quarantined a third cattle herd in Washington state after finding another cow that came from Canada in a shipment that contained the animal recently found to have the nation's first known case of mad cow disease. W. Ron DeHaven, the USDA's deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer, told reporters today that the dairy farm in Mattawa was quarantined earlier this week when the cow was found. With the discovery of that animal, he said, the government now has located 10 of the 82 cows in the herd that was shipped into Washington in September 2001 and has good leads on many of the others...USDA to keep ban on Canada cattle in place for now The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Friday it would not decide whether to reopen U.S. borders to some Canadian cattle until after the investigation into the first U.S. case of mad cow disease is complete. The United States banned imports of Canadian cattle and beef after a single case of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), was found in an Alberta cow last May. But in October, the USDA proposed to resume imports of Canadian cattle under 30 months old. Canadian officials had hoped the United States would reopen its border early in 2004. However, last week's discovery of mad cow disease in a Washington state dairy cow has prompted the USDA to delay work on its proposal. The USDA said the Monday deadline for submitting comments on the proposal would not be extended at this time...U.S. keeping options open on importing Canadian cattle, official says U.S. officials are keeping their options open on banning Canadian cattle from crossing the border following America's first mad cow case. A public comment period on allowing Canadian imports of cattle under 30 months of age was due to close Monday and ranchers have had high hopes for renewed trade. But Dr. Ron DeHaven, U.S. chief veterinarian, said Friday that deadline could be extended or an entirely new rule proposed after a Washington state cow that may have been born in Canada tested positive for the disease last week. "There are several options that . . . are under consideration," DeHaven told a news conference. "We would not make any determination in terms of a final rule without giving all due consideration to the new situation." Canadian Agriculture Minister Bob Speller said this week there's no reason to delay the resumption of trade in live cattle. And Canadian industry leaders played down the significance of DeHaven's statement Friday. Dennis Laycraft of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association said an extension of the ban until the investigation into the American BSE case is complete wouldn't be a surprise...U.S. May Pay Farmers to Test for Mad Cow The U.S. government said on Friday it might pay American farmers to bring in sick or crippled cattle to be tested for mad cow disease, as part of retooling safeguards against the deadly disease. The discovery of mad cow disease in a dairy cow in Mabton, Washington, has halted American beef exports worth an annual $3.2 billion and slashed cattle prices. However, restaurant and grocery chains say U.S. consumer demand for beef has not wavered in the 10 days since the disease was found...Consumer Groups Point to Holes in Cattle Feed Rules U.S. food safety regulators should widen a 1997 ban on feeding cattle parts to other cattle to include blood, gelatin and other exempted materials which could spread mad cow disease, consumer groups said on Friday. The discovery of mad cow disease in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state has focused new attention on how cattle are raised and slaughtered. Since the Dec. 23 diagnosis of the nation's first case, officials have repeatedly touted the fact that the infected cow was born in April 1997, about four months before the Food and Drug Administration banned the use of cattle remains as an ingredient in feed for other cows. However, in industry guidance documents issued in 1997, the FDA exempted from the ban cattle blood, blood products and gelatin, derived from cattle hoofs. The exemptions thus allow some cattle byproducts to be fed back to cattle. For example, some farms collect the blood of slaughtered cattle and feed it to calves in dehydrated form, said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association. This is a cheaper source of protein for calves than milk, he said. The existing feed ban is "not only inadequate but is actually a public health risk," Cummins said...Cattle edge up, grains soar U.S. cattle futures rose for the first time in six sessions Friday after falling about 20 percent on news last week of the first case of the deadly mad cow disease in the United States. At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, live cattle for February delivery rose 0.275 cent a pound on Friday to 73.800. That contract had closed at 90.675 cents on Dec. 23, before the U.S. Agriculture Department announced that a single Holstein dairy cow in Washington state had mad cow disease. The news has rocked the $27 billion cattle industry, the single largest sector of U.S. agriculture. More than two dozen nations have halted U.S. beef imports, which account for about 10 percent of annual production and $3.2 billion in sales. That backwash of supplies now hangs over the U.S. market. "I think it's going be volatile. I wouldn't say that this is the turn and we are going higher. I think this is more reflecting the volatility," said Jim Robb, economist with the Denver-based Livestock Marketing Information Center...Shippers 'in a tailspin' after ban on U.S. beef Pancost Trucking had been profitably hauling about eight refrigerated containers full of beef each week from Colorado to West Coast ports until the mad cow scare led dozens of countries to ban American beef. Now the Sterling, Colo.-based company is "in a tailspin" because two of its biggest customers, Tyson Foods and Excel, a division of Cargill, have all but halted exports, leaving owner Gerry Schaefer scrambling to find other work for his 20 drivers. "We've been having to run over to Nebraska to get potatoes," Schaefer said. "And we're hauling more pork out of Kansas." Though 90 percent of U.S. beef is sold at home, the overnight collapse of the export business has given companies that transport feed, cattle and beef, as well as some meat processors, plenty to worry about. Shippers and meat industry officials said it is too early to accurately assess the financial impact but that some economic hardship is already trickling down: the cattle trade between barns and feed lots has slowed, the value of slaughter-ready animals has declined and some meat processors have scaled back production enough to necessitate furloughs. Moreover, some $200 million worth of meat and meat products remains in limbo, either at sea, at port or in refrigerated facilities here and abroad, according to industry officials...Column: Why the disease scare may be great for the U.S. food industry and consumers In fact, mad cow disease in the United States may be the best thing to happen to the U.S. food industry and consumers since the invention of refrigeration. It's entirely possible that as a result of the current panic, in 10 years we'll not only look back and find next to no cases of mad cow in humans, but also look around at a better, healthier food supply. Perhaps we'll even have whittled down that appalling deaths-from-bad-food figure. (The obesity epidemic will still be taking a dire heath toll, but that's another story.) Here's why:...Milk group backs national ID program, USDA policy on downer cows The National Milk Producers Federation has announced its support for the additional BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease) risk reduction strategies USDA announced on Tuesday. In particular, NMPF says it believes the rapid deployment of a national animal identification program is essential to providing government regulators and those in the food production sector, with the means of tracing livestock...Dean Criticized in Vermont Mad Cow Case Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean blasted President Bush last week for not protecting the U.S. from mad cow disease, saying the report of a single infected cow "raises serious concerns about the ability of this administration to protect the safety of our nation's food supply." But the former Vermont governor was himself accused of dropping the ball on mad cow disease three years ago, when a flock of Vermont sheep was suspected of contracting the deadly affliction. In July 2000, one-time gubernatorial candidate Ruth Ann Dwyer slammed Dean for "not stepping in so far and allowing" the Vermont Health Department to issue a "warning against consuming cheese made from the milk of the sheep."...Mad Cow Meets Bad Bureaucrats On Jan. 25, 2002, the General Accounting Office published a prophetic and scathing report on the FDA's mad-cow performance record. Here are some telling excerpts from the report, entitled, "Mad Cow Disease—Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts."(pdf) While BSE [Mad Cow Disease] has not been found in the United States, federal actions do not sufficiently ensure that all BSE-infected animals or products are kept out or that if BSE were found, it would be detected promptly and not spread to other cattle through animal feed or enter the human food supply. . . .According to FDA 's October 2001 quarterly update that summarized results of feed ban inspections, 364 [animal-feed-manufacturing] firms were out of compliance. In addition, FDA believes that not all firms that should be subject to the ban have been identified and inspected, at least 1,200 or more based on industry estimates. However, we could not verify these data because we found significant flaws in FDA's database, which we discuss later in this report. FDA did not take prompt enforcement action to compel firms to comply with the feed ban. When we began this study, in April 2001, the only enforcement action FDA had taken was to issue two warning letters in 1999...