MAD COW NEWS

USDA Technical Briefing and Webcast On BSE with Dr. Ron DeHaven, Chief Veterinary Officer U.S. Department of Agriculture

Washington D.C.
Friday, January 9, 2004


MR. CURLETT: Hello. I'd like to welcome everybody to the BSE update for this Friday. My name is Ed Curlett.

Today we have Dr. Ron DeHaven, the chief veterinary officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He will make a statement, and then we will go to questions. Also on the line today we have Dr. Stephen Sundlof, of the Food and Drug Administration. He'll be available to take questions as needed.

To ask a question after the statement, hit the star key and number 1 on your phone, and that will get you in the queue. We ask that you ask one question, as there's a lot of people on the line, and we would like to get as many questions in as possible

With that, I will turn it over to Dr. DeHaven.

DR. DEHAVEN: Ed, thank you very much, and also I would like to extend my welcome and appreciation for everyone being on today's technical briefing.

Since our last briefing, we have some updates to our response effort as well as to our investigation.

First of all, Food Safety Inspection Service has submitted three rules and one notice for publication in the Federal Register next Monday. I'll list those in order. First, an interim final rule declaring that specified risk materials from animals over 30 months of age, and the small intestine of cattle of all ages, will be prohibited from entering the human food supply. Those specified risk materials include the skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia, eyes, vertebral column, spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia. Again, those would be from all cattle over 30 months of age and the small intestine from animals of all ages. Tonsils are already being excluded from going into the human food chain. That will become effective on Monday, when it is published in the Federal Register.

The second is an interim final rule expanding the prohibition on central nervous system tissue in Advanced Meat Recovery products.

The third is a final rule to prohibit air-injection stunning of cattle at slaughter.

And the fourth is the notice, which announces that FSIS inspectors will not mark ambulatory cattle that have been targeted for any BSE surveillance testing as "inspected and passed," until negative test results are obtained.

We are still working to develop the details of our surveillance program, and exactly how we will obtain samples from the high-risk population of animals, which certainly includes non-ambulatory animals. And, as you know, we have focused our efforts in getting those samples in the past at slaughter. So we are working on mechanisms to continue to have access to those animals at other locations, such as the rendering plants.

We will also look forward to any recommendations that may be forthcoming from the international review team that will be arriving later this month as it relates to recommendations they would have to revisions to our overall surveillance program.

Also, in light of the fact that we may now need to have a quick turnaround for samples in our surveillance system, we are going to begin accepting applications for BSE tests. Our Center for Veterinary Biologics has up until now been accepting and reviewing data from companies that have various rapid tests, but they have not formally been accepting applications for license or permit up until now. Currently, the only BSE test approved for use by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the immunohistochemistry or IHC test. Internationally this is recognized as the gold standard, and is certainly the standard that is applied in the test that we have used at our National Veterinary Services Laboratories to confirm the BSE detection in December. This test, depending on the logistics of collecting and submitting the samples, as well as the three to five days that it takes to run the test, then result in about a two-week turnaround time from sample collection to final results.

With these new rapid screening tests that might be licensed by our Center for Veterinary Biologics, we will continue to do confirmatory testing of any BSE presumptive positive on any of those tests at our National Veterinary Services Laboratories, again using the gold standard IHC test.

Specific information about how companies can apply for a BSE diagnostic kit license will be posted on our USDA website momentarily.

I also have an operational update for you as it relates to our ongoing investigation in the state of Washington. USDA will soon begin to remove a limited number of cows from the index herd in Mabton, Washington. At this time we will most likely remove approximately 130 animals from this herd that consist of approximately 4,000 dairy animals. We are taking these animals, because we have determined through our ongoing epidemiological investigation that some of them were herd mates to the BSE-infected animal back in the birth herd in Alberta, Canada. This means that these animals could have potentially been exposed to the same feed source as the index or positive animal.

I would remind everyone, however, that even in the height of the BSE infections found in Europe, and most notably in the U.K., it was rare to have more than one or two animals that were affected in any single herd. But certainly applying our principle of abundance of caution, USDA believes that euthanizing these animals that may have been in the index positive animal's birth herd is an appropriate action to take at this time, and certainly consistent with our overall decision and response to this particular situation.

As our epidemiological investigation continues, it is certainly possible that we may need to depopulate other animals from this herd -- animals in the herd that's currently under state hold order in Mattawa, Washington, as well as other animals that may be placed as part of this overall investigation.

Just to reiterate where we are, as you will recall there were 81 animals that we know that came across the Canadian border into the United States on September 4th, 2001. Of those 81 animals, one was the positive cow; two are currently under hold order on the premises in Mattawa, Washington. We believe that seven of them went to another dairy, and we are working to determine if those animals are still there. Nine of them are located under hold order in the index herd, the herd from which the positive cow left immediately before going to slaughter. We do know that potentially some of the remaining animals in that group of 81 would still be on the index premises, but have not yet been able to identify them, or single them out, if you will, based on the records that we have.

Looking at the whole population of 4,000 animals, the process has been one of reviewing birth records of animals on the farm. And so from that group of over 4,000, we have been able to eliminate from the at-risk population of animals those that would have been born on this farm. We have also been able to eliminate from the at-risk population animals that may have entered the herd, but entered the herd at a time different from when we know this positive cow entered the herd. And so through this process of elimination we have narrowed the at-risk population down to about 258 animals that could have been part of this shipment of 81 animals.

So, of that 258 at-risk population, records would suggest that 110 of them have been pulled from the herd, and we are doing further investigation to trace those animals out. One hundred and twenty-nine of those at-risk population are still on the farm, and these are the ones that are being targeted for depopulation. There are 19 for which we have no record of them being culled from the herd, nor any other record to suggest that they are still on the farm. So we are again focusing a lot of our efforts to identify those other 19 animals.

One last thing before we move to a question and answer period is I just wanted to mention that we do have with us this week here in Washington, D.C. a Japanese technical team that is here on a fact-finding mission. They are gathering information from all of the relevant agencies, to include the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Food Safety Inspection Service, and FDA. And then next week they will be going on to the state of Washington to continue that fact-finding mission.

And next week here in Washington, D.C., we will be hosting another team, this one from Mexico, to again provide them with technical information as to where we are with regard to the overall investigation.

With that, let me pause and see what questions you may have. Operator, if we could, please, start with the first question?...

Followed by Q&A with reporters.

R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America

January 9, 2004 johnlockie@r-calfusa.com

R-CALF USA: U.S. Must Take Steps to Identify All Canadian Cattle in the U.S.


(Billings, MT) “The USDA’s confirmation that the cow with BSE found in the state of Washington on December 23 was imported from Canada reinforces R-CALF USA’s long-standing call to permanently identify all imported cattle and further establishes the need to begin identifying all Canadian cattle currently residing within our borders,” said R-CALF USA president Leo McDonnell.

McDonnell said U.S. cattle producers have suffered a serious financial blow as a direct result of our lax import policies. “Fed cattle prices have fallen 15 to 20 percent since December 23 because USDA did not immediately announce that the cow was imported from Canada,” he said. McDonnell explained that our export customers rely upon the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to determine the risk status of countries relative to BSE, and the OIE maintains a separate list for countries that have found BSE only in imported animals. This is because a country’s health status does not change if BSE is only found in imports. “Had our export customers been informed that this cow was of Canadian origin, it is likely that they wouldn’t have overreacted by closing their markets to U.S. beef; and they most certainly wouldn’t have overreacted if we had country of origin labeling in place,” he said.

“U.S. cattle producers should not have to assume the very real risk associated with the future possibility that an imported Canadian cow might lose her Canadian ear tag and subsequently tests positive for BSE,” McDonnell commented. Despite the fact that the Canadian cattle industry is in direct competition with the U.S. cattle industry, McDonnell warns that there is a dangerous campaign underway to convince U.S. cattle producers that the two competing industries should be considered a single, integrated North American cattle industry. “This is nonsense,” said McDonnell, adding, “Our members are proud to be United States cattle producers and we raise the safest and best beef in the world and under the very best of conditions. It’s high time we begin differentiating both our product and our cattle for our customers.”

McDonnell said R-CALF USA’s research reveals that identifying Canadian cattle imported into the United States since 1997, the year the U.S. implemented its feed ban to protect the U.S. cattle herd from BSE, is doable. R-CALF USA compiled the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) data that shows Canada exported 8.1 million head of cattle to the U.S. since 1997. Over 75 percent of these Canadian cattle were imported for immediate slaughter in U.S. packing plants. An additional 19 percent of these Canadian cattle exports were feeder cattle. “These cattle were placed in feedlots and it can be presumed that they too have been slaughtered in U.S. plants,” said McDonnell. This means that despite the high numbers of cattle imported into the United States over the past 7 years, it is most likely that only about 6 percent of these imported cattle still reside in the U.S.

For example, R-CALF USA’s analysis shows that in 2001, the year the BSE infected cow was exported to the United States, Canadian exports of live cattle numbered 1.3 million. Over one million, or 78 percent of these cattle went directly to slaughter leaving only 285,000 head in U.S. dairies, feedlots, farms or ranches. However, nearly 200,000, or over 15 percent of the total number imported were feeder cattle destined for slaughter in U.S. plants within 3 to 8 months. This leaves less than 85,000 head of cattle that may still be residing in the U.S. from the 2001 imports. McDonnell said that over 75,000 of these cattle are dairy cattle and as the USDA said repeatedly during its BSE investigation, the dairy industry maintains very good records making the tracking of such animals relatively easy. “Only 9,500 were breeding-type beef cattle and the USDA can readily track these cattle through health inspection papers, sales transactions, and brand records,” McDonnell stated.

McDonnell said the U.S. and Canadian cattle industries are far from integrated. “At the very most, imported Canadian cattle since 1997 represent less than one-half of one percent of our 96.5 million head cattle herd in the United States, and that’s assuming that all the breeding dairy and beef cattle imported since 1997 are still alive,” said McDonnell. McDonnell said identifying these Canadian cattle could be expedited if the USDA were to offer an incentive for U.S. cattle producers to aid in the identification process. “U.S. Farmers and ranchers would be more than willing to help in the identification process if they were assured they would not face financial penalties by marking any imported cattle in their possession,” he said.

When asked about the trade flows of U.S. live cattle exports to Canada, McDonnell said the data will likely shock the U.S. live cattle industry. The United States has imported 8 times more Canadian live cattle than it exported to Canada since 1997, and Canada enjoyed over a 9 to 1 advantage based on value, with the U.S. importing $6 billion worth of Canadian cattle since 1997 but exporting less than $620 million,” he said. “This has been a one-way street for quite some time,” said McDonnell.

R-CALF USA has posted its charts on imports of Canadian cattle at www.r-calfusa.com

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R-CALF USA, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America is a national, non-profit cattle association representing cattle producers in the areas of trade and marketing. R-CALF USA has approximately 9,000 individual members in 46 states and 55 affiliated local and state cattle and farm organizations. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or call 406-252-2516.

Cargill cutting beef jobs Cargill Inc. is cutting about 700 jobs at five beef-processing plants in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, citing lost exports of U.S. beef following the discovery of a case of mad-cow disease. Cargill's Excel Corp. unit said yesterday that it was laying off 100 to 150 people at each of the plants. The five plants each employed 2,200 to 2,500 people. "A number of countries have banned U.S. beef, and there are some products we will not now be processing for export. That has led to the layoffs," said Bill Rupp of Excel...Column: Coming to Terms With the Problem of Global Meat It has been instructive watching American agriculture respond to this minicrisis. The usual players have retreated to their usual corners. Some cattle growers have publicly praised the beef checkoff program, which collects a small percentage of the sales from every producer for advertising, because it creates the illusion of a unified voice in a time of trouble. 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Authorities may decide to recall those still in stock, he added...Texas cattlemen cheered by auction prices first cattle auctions in Texas since the holiday break have encouraged ranchers and others worried about the impact of the mad cow scare on prices. A survey by the Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas found cattle prices were down only about 6 to 10 percent from the record $1 per pound late last year before the mad cow case was confirmed in Washington state...After mad cow, U.S. farmers warily back animal ID America's traditionally independent farmers will drop their distrust of outside meddling to embrace a national livestock identification system as a safeguard against mad cow disease, leaders of the largest U.S. farm group say. The Bush administration included speedy adoption of animal IDs among its new protections, headlined by a ban on using sick or crippled animals in food, after the Dec. 23 discovery of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease. 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