January 11, 2005
USA Today
OTTAWA — Canadian government inspectors have confirmed another case of mad cow disease in the province of Alberta, the nation's food agency said Tuesday.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said the brain-wasting disease known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE showed up in an Alberta cow younger than 7. That means it was born after a 1997 feed ban in Canada removed the use of ruminants such as cattle in animal feed; that was commonly believed to be the cause of the disease.
Officials say no part of the latest animal has entered the human or animal feed system.
This is the second case of BSE in Canada this year.
Earlier this month, the disease was detected in an 8-year-old cow from Alberta. It was born in the same herd, within one year, of a cow shipped to the United States in February 2002 for immediate slaughter, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
That first case was reported just a day after the United States said it planned to reopen its border to Canadian beef in March. The border was closed in May 2003 after a cow in northern Alberta tested positive for BSE.
On Monday, a cattlemen's group sued the USDA to stop it from allowing live cattle and expanded beef imports from Canada. The lawsuit by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America said the USDA's plan would pose a risk to consumers and U.S. producers.
The ban has devastated Canadian ranchers, leaving them with a surplus of cattle and few places to slaughter or sell them.
The U.S. ban on Canadian beef has depressed Canadian prices and crippled ranches and feedlots. Cattle farmers have lost an estimated C$5 billion ($4.1 billion) since the first home-grown case was found in May 2003.
The USDA had announced plans to restart trade March 7, after it learned about Canada's second case of the disease, which was confirmed Jan. 2.
A U.S. industry source said the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was reconsidering the move Tuesday.
"Career folks at APHIS are saying they are going to kill the rule," the industry source said.
A USDA spokesman declined comment.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said last week it would test nine old cattle related to the Jan. 2 case of mad cow disease.
Until 2003, North America had been considered free of the brain-wasting livestock disease, which has ravaged the cattle industry in Britain and other European countries.
Humans can contract a form of the disease from eating contaminated meat — variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — and more than 100 people around the world have died from it, mainly in Europe.
The United States reported its first case of mad cow disease in December 2003, but traced it to a Canadian-born dairy cow.
All three North American cases were born before 1997 feed rules designed to prevent the spread of mad cow disease.
Canadian officials have warned they expected to find a few more cases of the disease as they dramatically increased tests of old and sick cattle.
Last year, the CFIA tested more than 23,500 cattle for the disease.
Contributing: Associated Press, Reuters
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-07-mad-cow_x.htm