Posted on 04/16/2006 6:06:04 PM PDT by neverdem
CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Federal officials have confirmed a new case of mad cow disease — the fifth in Canada since screening began three years ago. A six-year-old dairy cow from British Columbia tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Sunday.
The cow from a Fraser Valley farm was identified through the national BSE surveillance program when it began having trouble walking.
“That’s how it caught the eye of the farmer and the vet,” food agency spokesman Alain Charette said Sunday.
Officials say no part of the animal entered the human food or animal feed systems and that the positive test result does not affect the safety of Canadian beef.
Meat contaminated with BSE has been linked to the deaths of dozens of people, primarily in Britain.
Canada has invited the United States to participate in follow-up testing of the B.C. case.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said his department would dispatch an animal health expert to Canada on Monday.
“Information gathered through this investigation will help us to determine what, if any, impact this should have on our beef and live cattle trade with Canada,” Johanns said in a statement.
“Based on the information currently available, I do not anticipate a change in the status of our trade.”
Discovery of BSE in Alberta in 2003 closed world markets to Canadian beef, costing producers billions of dollars.
Trade in younger animals, considered less likely to be infected, resumed with the United States last July. Still, the U.S. border remains shut to cattle more than 30 months of age, as well as meat products from such animals.
The last Canadian mad cow case turned up in Alberta in January.
In the latest case, the B.C. cow was purchased from another nearby farm about a year ago.
The food inspection agency is examining potential sources of infection, paying particular attention to feed the cow may have eaten — since that is almost certainly how the disease was transmitted.
Officials are also tracking down the cow’s herdmates of a similar age that may have eaten the same feed. They will be destroyed and tested for BSE.
In 1997, in order to reduce the risk of infection, Canada banned the practice of adding cattle protein to feed.
George Luterbach, a senior veterinarian with the food inspection agency, suspects recent Canadian instances of mad cow disease stem from tainted feed that had already entered circulation when the ban was imposed nine years ago.
“The cases are probably a result of some small amount of residual contamination remaining within the feed system,” Luterbach said from Abbotsford, B.C.
The president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association said the latest BSE finding is neither significant nor unexpected.
Canadian officials have been on top the situation from the start through continual testing, Hugh Lynch-Staunton told CHNL Radio.
“That work will be ongoing and we will continue to be vigilant.”
Inspectors have tested about 100,000 animals since Canada’s first mad cow case was detected in 2003.
Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl noted Friday that experts maintain both Canada and the United States are dealing with a low level of mad cow disease.
“This case, and others that may be found in the future, do not indicate that BSE in this part of the world is worsening,” Strahl said in a statement.
“Rather, they are a reflection of government, industry and individual producer’s commitment, on both sides of the border, to responsibly manage the disease.”
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
But the rumen is not part of the central nervous system. Hmm. Makes you wonder ...
Still thankful that FIL and DH thought feeding animal by-products to the cows was "just too weird."
ping
Recently it was proven that it didn't take neurological tissue to spread BSE. Even the muscle tissue contained infective prions. Its not been long since this information was made available.
Now if this was true wouldn't there be some case's out side of mike cows? Now before you get all excited, about the one case that was said to be a beef cow, in fact the animal in question was a black Holstein.
OK- so what's up with Canadian beef? Do they not learn from their mistakes?
Many countries have a ban in place against US beef... do they also have a ban on Canadian beef, as they seem to be the ones with the contamination....
That's bad news. The Fraser Valley is not all that far from me. We buy mainly Alberta beef anyway. But this bad feed should have been out of the system long ago. They have had plenty of time to correct this!!
BSE can appear at random. So it is possible that this case is an isolated one, not a result of contagion.
It's encouraging that they detected it and that they told us about it...
Yes, I agree with you about that. Shows they are checking the herds and at least being honest.
That said, it never made sense to me to have ground up sheep in the cows feed. They are vegetarians!! After what happened in Britan I would have thought that ALL of that feed would have been done away with.
It's hard to overcome greed...
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