Tuesday, January 06, 2004

MAD COW NEWS

DNA Tests Verfiy U.S. Mad Cow From Canada

Genetic testing confirms that the cow diagnosed with the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was born in Canada, agriculture officials said Tuesday.

The test results will allow investigators to intensify their search for the source of infection, most likely from contaminated feed, in Alberta, where the Holstein was born in 1997.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced the mad cow diagnosis on Dec. 23, the first time the disease has been found in the United States since its discovery in Great Britain in the mid-1980s.

The DNA tests on the cow, on one of its offspring and on the semen from the cow's sire, as well as records that show the cow came from a dairy farm in Alberta, make "us confident in the accuracy of this traceback," said Dr. Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian.

Brian Evans, a Canadian agriculture official, said independent testing from a Canadian lab agreed.

Canadian officials had announced last May that a cow in Alberta had been diagnosed with the disease.

While no links have been found between the two cases, investigators now will focus on looking for common sources of feed, Evans said.

He added, "We have not got sufficient evidence to make any feed link between the two farms."...

USDA technical briefing and Webcast On BSE with Canadian and U.S. Officials including Dr. Ron DeHaven, Chief Veterinary Officer, USDA and Dr. Brian Evans, Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

MR. CURLETT: Hello. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's BSE situation update. I apologize for the late start today. Today we have with us Dr. Brian Evans, the chief veterinary officer for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. And we have Dr. Ron DeHaven, the chief veterinary officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They will both make statements today, and then we will take some questions. We ask that you limit your questions to one, as we have a lot of people on the line, and that you state your name and affiliation prior to asking your question. And with that, I will turn it over to Dr. DeHaven. Thank you.

DR. DEHAVEN: Ed, thank you very much, and thanks to all of you for joining us, particularly on such short notice.

Today we are updating on recent events that have occurred since the briefing that we held yesterday by phone. We now have DNA evidence that allows us to verify with a high degree of certainty that the BSE positive cow found in the state of Washington originated from a dairy farm in Alberta, Canada. This DNA evidence is based on a comparison of DNA from the brain of the positive cow with the DNA from the semen of her sire, as determined by records on the farm in Alberta.

Additional DNA test results involved the yearling heifer calf on the index farm, which was born from this positive cow. Breeding records on that calf confirm that she was born from the positive cow, bearing the same tag number found on the positive cow at slaughter, which is also the same tag number found on the record on the dairy farm in Alberta, Canada.

This new DNA information, coupled with the documentation that we have obtained from our colleagues in Canada, from the owner of the dairy farm in Mabton, Washington, and through import records makes us confident in the accuracy of this trace-back.

Clearly other elements of the investigation will continue, and will continue on both sides of the border, and may provide additional information.

I'd like to point out that from the very beginning of this investigation the cooperative efforts on both sides of the border have been tremendous. Indeed, we are sharing colleagues, with Canadian personnel actively involved in our epidemiological investigation in the United States, as well as their U.S. counterparts actively involved in the investigation and activities on the Canadian side of the border.

So I want to thank our Canadian colleagues for their professionalism, for their thoroughness, and for their assistance in this investigation.

And now I'd like to pass the microphone to my friend and colleague, Dr. Brian Evans, the chief veterinary officer with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Brian?

DR. EVANS: Thanks very much, Ron. As Dr. DeHaven has clearly indicated in his opening address, the DNA results conducted in Canada, and being reported today as well, fully complement and reflect those returned from the U.S. laboratory.

As indicated as well, in reaching the determination being announced today, it is very important that we all recognize the fact that the DNA results themselves are but one step in a broader fabric of elements that are being fully considered as we continue to pursue all of the avenues of the investigation.

The cooperation at the field level and at the laboratory level continues to be exemplary from our perspective, and it reflects the commitment that we both share to protecting public animal health and food safety in the broader North American context.

The finding today is but one step, as Ron has indicated, down a road, which we will continue to pursue in parallel on the Canadian and U.S. sides. The important next steps that we will collaborate on, as he has indicated -- we will look at areas like how this animal has become infected, and therefore feed investigations will be intimate to that determination.

Equally, joint decisions relative to ongoing tracing of associated animals and appropriate depopulation and testing strategies, will be a second key component of the investigation, which we will continue to work through.

And finally, at the end of the day, as we try to bring conclusion to all the avenues of the investigation, we are equally committed to continue to work together in any other manner that would be dictated by the findings of the investigation, so that again other factors are fully taken into account to ensure that there is no outstanding issue, no rock unturned, to ensure at the end of the day, no matter who assesses the integrity of the investigation, that it will withstand any scrutiny brought to bear, and will reflect collectively again our interests to continue to protect public and animal health.

DR. DEHAVEN: With that, operator, I think we could go to questions. Operator, if you could, we would like to have a short question-and-answer period, please...

Consumers group wants carcass testing to stop spread of mad cow Consumers Union says the government's proposals to stop the spread of mad cow disease are inadequate. Senior research associate Dr. Michael Hansen says one of the most effective ways to stop mad cow is to test every carcass for traces of the disease. Hansen says Europe and Japan have been doing this for some time and have prevented diseased animals from getting into the food chain...Rabbis say kosher beef may be safer against mad cow disease Orthodox Jewish rabbis say kosher regulations on beef already include precautions that the government is using to guard against mad cow disease. One rabbi says kosher slaughtering bans animals that cannot stand on their own and forbids stunning cattle with air injections before slaughter -- a technique that might dislocate brain tissue, which is a carrier of mad cow disease. He says the kosher practice of removing cattle's sciatic nerves may also help protect against mad cow disease... Fear, frustration, pessimism greet DNA mad cow confirmation in Alberta It's just as well that Alberta rancher Ron Beniuk was sitting down when he heard Tuesday the DNA confirmation that an American cow diagnosed with mad cow disease originated in Alberta. "I'm sitting down, 'cause I can't get no lower," said Beniuk, who has 175 cows near Lac La Biche north of Edmonton. Beniuk fears that confirmation will only lead to more Alberta-raised cows being found with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. "There are cows that were fed the same feed and everything that are still in the system," he said. "When they get butchered they're going to find some more BSE. That cow wasn't fed that bone meal by herself." The fear and the uncertainty is getting to him...Enzyme Fully Degrades Mad Cow Disease Prion Research by North Carolina State University scientists, in conjunction with scientists from the Netherlands and BioResource International, an NC State spin-off biotechnology company, has shown that, under proper conditions, an enzyme can fully degrade the prion - or protein particle - believed to be responsible for mad cow disease and other related animal and human diseases. These transmissible prions - believed to be the cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the technical name for mad cow disease, as well as the human and sheep versions, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and scrapie, respectively - are highly resistant to degradation, says Dr. Jason Shih, professor of biotechnology and poultry science at NC State. But the new research, which tested the effects of a bacterial enzyme keratinase on brain tissues from cows with BSE and sheep with scrapie, showed that, when the tissue was pretreated and in the presence of a detergent, the enzyme fully degraded the prion, rendering it undetectable...Deaths rise in Britain from variant of mad cow The number of people in Britain who died from a brain disease related to mad cow increased in 2003 for the first time in four years, the Health Department has announced. Eighteen people died in 2003 from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the agency said Monday, up from 17 in 2002. The disease, known as vCJD, is thought to stem from eating infected beef and attacks the human brain in much the same way as mad cow attacks the bovine brain. To date, 139 people in Britain have died from "definite or probable" cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the agency said, and another six are still living with it. Statistically, the increase could be just "random noise," said Dr. Simon Cousens, who tracks the disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Still, there is no uniform opinion on whether death from exposure to mad cow disease is falling in Britain, Cousens said...Governor proclaims 'American Beef Week' Gov. Kathleen Sebelius had a suggestion Monday for dinner: "Go buy a burger. Eat a steak." Sebelius' lighthearted message was a serious suggestion that consumers continue to eat beef despite the discovery last month of a cow infected with mad cow disease in Washington state. The governor made the remark as she signed a proclamation marking "American Beef Week." Sebelius said governors of Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas all signed similar proclamations to reassure consumers the nation's beef supply remains safe. Those states are among 10 that are responsible for about 75 percent of the beef market in the United States, Sebelius said. "We all recognize that it's not only significant for our economies, but it's a key part of the diet of Americans," she said. "Hopefully, Kansas and American consumers will continue to buy and eat beef."...Cattle Prices Sink, Japan to Retain Ban Cattle prices fell sharply in Chicago on Tuesday after officials with top importer Japan said they will keep their ban on U.S. beef imports, two weeks after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States. On Tuesday, live cattle for February delivery at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange closed down 1.40 cents a pound at 73.900 cents. That benchmark contract had closed at 90.675 cents on Dec. 23, before the mad cow discovery was announced...Mexican officials to visit U.S. for mad cow talks Mexican officials will visit Washington next week to see what steps the United States is taking to prevent the spread of mad cow disease following the identification of one case last month, officials said on Tuesday. "We extended an invitation to a technical team from the Mexican agriculture ministry to visit the United States, they accepted our invitation and they will be arriving in Washington on Monday," J.B. Penn, an undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told reporters in Mexico City. U.S. agriculture officials pushed Mexico, a major consumer of meat from its northern neighbor, to lift the ban on beef imports at talks in the Mexican capital on Tuesday...Experts Seek Analysis of Human Mad Cow Scientists have yet to document a single U.S. case of someone getting the human version of mad cow disease from contaminated beef. Then again, they might not be looking hard enough. Some experts say scientists should be looking more closely at cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - a brain-destroying disorder that kills hundreds of Americans each year - to see whether some of these deaths were, in fact, caused by beef from cattle infected with mad cow disease. "Could there be one (missed) case in there? Maybe," said Lawrence Schonberger, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist who has studied CJD for more than a decade. "In this game, we never say something's impossible."...Amending the US beef business Americans today are learning far more than they ever wanted to know about the process of turning cows into thousands of products that even a hard-core vegan would have trouble avoiding - cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fire-extinguisher foam, lubricants, the glue that holds plywood together. Not to mention the steaks, roasts, hamburger, and other meat items that human carnivores regularly devour. The process is necessarily violent and mechanical, involving slicing, grinding, and high-pressure blasting and compression. It's much safer than it was years ago - both for slaughterhouse and meat- processing workers, as well as for consumers. But it has also run the risk of mixing the potentially disease-causing parts of the cow (brain, spinal cord, and parts of the intestine) into the muscle meat and other food products - including sausage - that many Americans eat every day. Meat from the infected Holstein was mixed in with 20,000 pounds from other cows before being shipped to market. Some doctors now suspect that people diagnosed with Alzheimer's may in fact have the human version of the neurological disease, which incubates years before appearing in the form of mental and physical degeneration. No one knows for sure if there is any possible link to animals with bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE (the scientific name for mad-cow disease), however. That's because until now the inspection system for cattle headed for the slaughterhouse has been relatively minimal...Aussie Beef Prices Soar Fears of an outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States have sent the price of wholesale Australian beef in Japan surging by as much as 40%, according to a report Tuesday. The price of benchmark frozen Australian beef has jumped to Y950 yen a kilogram in Tokyo -- up Y270 yen (US$2.54), or 40 percent, since Dec. 23 -- just before the government slapped an import ban on U.S. beef, the business daily Nikkei Shimbun reported. According to figures from the Japan Meat Trading Center, wholesale U.S. beef prices have plummeted, while the prices of Australian cuts have steadily increased since the Dec. 24 ban, which was imposed after the discovery of the first American case of mad cow disease...Mexico to Weigh Importing Some U.S. Beef Mexico, one of the biggest markets for American beef, will consider allowing imports of some cuts of meat as exceptions to a ban imposed after the United States' first case of mad cow disease was discovered, officials said Tuesday. But Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga said a decision to make those exceptions could take months and would only occur after Mexico was satisfied that U.S. controls were adequate. Mexico also wants to send its own experts to the United States to examine the controls. Cuba also is negotiating new purchases of American cattle, confident that concerns over mad cow disease will be quickly allayed and the animals shipped will be healthy, said Pedro Alvarez, head of Cuba's food import company. Cuba earlier considered postponing some purchases of American cattle because of mad cow concerns...

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