MAD COW DISEASE

U.S. agriculture secretary nominee agrees to play role in cattle trade hearing U.S. politicians were unsuccessful Thursday when they pressed agriculture secretary nominee Mike Johanns to delay dropping the ban on Canadian cattle. But Johanns, who will soon be confirmed as the new department chief, did agree to participate in a congressional hearing on the issue before the cattle trade is set to resume March 7. "As a nominee today, I would not indicate any kind of decision to postpone or whatever," Johanns told a confirmation hearing of the Senate's agriculture committee. "Today what I can offer to you is I'll participate aggressively in that hearing," he said. "We need to make sure that (animal and food safety) issues have been touched, that we've paid attention to them, that we're doing the right things in those areas in terms of this rule and in terms of Canada."....
Tyson Says It Will Trim Beef Operations Tyson Foods Inc. said Thursday it would temporarily cut operations at four beef plants and scale back production at another because of tight cattle supplies, low demand and a reduction in the number of its overseas markets. The reduction, expected to last three to five weeks, affects about 2,100 workers, who are being asked to take one week of paid vacation. Production will be suspended at Denison, Iowa; Norfolk and West Point, Neb.; and Boise, Idaho. Second-shift processing at a plant in Pasco, Wash., will also be temporarily halted. The suspensions take effect Monday. The plants process up to a combined 30,000 head per week. Visiting a Lexington, Neb., plant last month, Tyson said part of his company's cattle supply problem stems from a U.S. ban on live cattle from Canada that began in May 2003 because of a case of mad cow disease in that country. Also, a number of overseas countries closed their markets to American beef after a mad cow scare....
Mexico: Mad Cow Scare Boosted Industry The scare over mad cow diseases in the United States and Canada may have cost producers in those countries much of their Mexican market permanently, Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga said Wednesday. Usabiaga told a news conference that Mexico's meat industry has managed to fill the gap in supply left since U.S. beef was first barred in December 2003 after the discovery of a Washington State animal with mad cow disease - bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The measure later eased to allow cuts of meat without bone or nerve material, though machine-boned meat remains barred. Some industry officials were more cautious, however. Daniel Curiel, president of the Mexican Meat Council, said the industry might keep some of the market, but said it had not been able to fill all of the demand left by the absence of U.S. cuts....
State Begins New Cattle Disease Protection Program Alabama is one of the first states in the country to establish a program to protect consumers from such cattle diseases as mad cow disease. The State of Alabama is planning a new way to keep track of the state’s cattle market "to make sure they understand that we have a safe industry and to use the technology that is available so that we can have a great program," said Ron Sparks, the Alabama Agricultural Commissioner. After filling out a form, each farmer and his or her farm gets an identification number. That number follows the particular livestock from registration to slaughter to the supermarket. In case of disease, it'll be easier to track the livestock back to it's origin. Perry Debter is a fourth generation heifer farmer and the president-elect of the state’s Cattleman's Association. He believes this new registry will ensure safety and enhance the good job Alabama cattlemen already do....
Infected cow ate feed made of cattle remains Investigators have confirmed that the latest cow infected with mad cow disease ate feed containing the remains of other ruminants. Alberta's chief veterinarian, Dr. Gerald Ollis, says the confirmation fits with the widely accepted belief about how bovine spongiform encephalopathy is contracted. "If we had a situation where this cow had never been exposed to meat meal in its entire life, and you could prove that, that would cause some concern about how it had become infected. The fact that meat meal has now been determined to have been in the diet of that animal within its first six months of age, just confirms the current theory on the spread of BSE," Ollis said. Cattle eating the remains of other infected cattle is the most common way the disease is spread....
LMA Urges Bush To Reconsider Reopening Border To Canadian Cattle The domestic cattle industry should not be “sacrificed on the altar of foreign trade” by the March reopening of the U.S. – Canadian border to Canadian cattle, Livestock Marketing Association told the Bush Administration on Jan. 6. Given recent events in Canada – finding the second Canadian “mad cow” in 20 months – resuming cattle trade with Canada now would be “premature and put at risk the health” of the U.S. herd and “diminish consumer confidence in our domestic meat supply,” LMA President Randy Patterson said in letters to President George W. Bush and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. Patterson urged both officials to reconsider the announced border reopening “until more information can be obtained” about Canada’s enforcement of their ban on feeding certain protein materials “and the extent of the BSE problem is more carefully assessed, based on the latest confirmed BSE case.”....
Editorial: Risk to food safety is low from BSE The Greek chorus south of the 49th parallel is a bit overwrought. This is an animal health issue, not one of food safety. And as the Harvard studies show, the risk is low in either case. Much of the cacophony opposed to reopening the border to Canadian live cattle smacks of trade protectionism or false perceived risk to human health. Calls by U.S. cattlemen for testing of all slaughtered Canadian cattle for BSE is more than disingenuous in that a similar demand by Japan was categorically rejected by the U.S. cattlemen as unnecessary and too expensive. What the U.S. cattle industry needs to keep in mind is that it is not improbable that somewhere in the United States there is a cow or cows with BSE that did not originate in Canada. If the United States sets up an unrealistic regimen for those sending beef or cattle into the United States, domestic producers might find the world returning the favor when BSE pops up here....