Officials Look at Feed in Mad Cow Case .....................
May 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:04 p.m. ET
TORONTO (AP) -- Investigators looking into the roots of
North America's first mad cow case in a decade were tracing
where the infected cow lived, how many calves it produced
and what it ate.
Cattle feed from animal sources contaminated with bovine
spongiform encephalopathy is considered the most likely
cause of the infection case in the Canadian province of
Alberta.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said 13 farms were now
under quarantine -- eight in Alberta; two in Saskatchewan
to the east; and three in British Columbia to the west.
The farms quarantined in British Colombia were feed
suppliers, said Brian Evans, the agency's chief veterinary
officer.
Evans defended Canadian safeguards against BSE, such as a
1997 ban on giving cattle feed made from animals such as
cows and sheep, but acknowledged that violations can occur.
``It's the individual feeding the animal who has the
ultimate responsibility,'' he said, adding investigators
had yet to find evidence of any wrongdoing.
The growing list of quarantined farms reflects the
thoroughness of the investigation, rather than any
indication of further spread of BSE, said George Luterbach
of the Canadian food agency.
Early indications showed the infected cow might have been
born on a Canadian farm, which would make it the first case
of a North American-born animal contracting the illness.
Mad cow disease decimated the British beef industry in the
1990s. The human form of the illness is Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease, which causes paralysis and death.
Scientists believe humans develop new variants of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob when they eat meat from infected animals.
More than 130 people have died of the disease, mostly in
Britain.
The discovery has caused the United States, Japan,
Australia, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Indonesia
and Barbados to ban all beef imports from Canada, despite
reassurances from Canadian government and industry
officials that the beef was safe.
Some U.S. legislators have criticized the delay in testing
and called for guarantees of improvement before reopening
the U.S. market, which consumes more than 70 percent of
Canada's beef product exports.
Alberta Agriculture Minister Shirley McClellan said Friday
that improvements would be considered.
``We have a system and it did work,'' McClellan said.
``Should we change our testing priorities? If our trading
partners would ask us to change that, certainly we'll look
at that. Absolutely.''
Canadian investigators removed all the cattle from one
Alberta farm and were destroying the herd to examine the
brains for further possible cases of BSE. Test results were
expected early next week.
``I don't believe that cow came in contact with anything
that gave it that disease on my farm,'' owner Marwyn
Peaster said Thursday.
While Canadian authorities and farmers say the lone case of
BSE presents minimal public risk, the closing of major
foreign markets to Canada's beef products brought immediate
cuts in production and uncertainty to a $22 billion
industry.
The only previous case of BSE in North America was in 1993,
involving a bull imported from Britain. The animal and its
herd were slaughtered, but no trade bans resulted.
The recent infected cow was slaughtered Jan. 31 but kept
out of the food chain because it was believed to have
pneumonia, officials said. Testing was delayed several
months because there was no suspicion of BSE, as well as a
backlog of higher priority cases, officials said.
Mad cow disease first erupted in Britain in 1986 and is
thought to have spread through cow feed made with protein
and bone meal from mammals.
Canada and the United States outlawed the feeding of meat
and bone meal to cattle, sheep and goats in 1997, a rule
believed to be the main defense against the disease.
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On the Net:
Canadian Food Inspection Agency:
inspection.gc.ca
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy:
iatp.org
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company. |
