Measures Against BSE 'Working'

From BBC.com on January 27, 2005

Current safety precautions are enough to protect humans against mad cow disease, according to BSE experts.

Banning brain, spinal tissue and older cattle from the food chain has worked, the French team told the Lancet.

By studying monkeys, they estimated how much infected tissue a human would have to eat to be at risk and said it would be more than anyone could consume.

UK experts said the exact quantity remained an enigma and recommended continued surveillance.

To become infected you would need to eat an enormous amount of brain, which is not possible.

The Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique scientists estimate that a person would have to eat at least 1·5kg of neural (brain and spinal) tissue to be at risk of developing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).

This applies to cattle that screen negative for disease when they are slaughtered but harbour low levels of infection.

Lead researcher Dr Jean-Philippe Deslys said this meant even if the UK switched to screening cattle older than 30 months for BSE, as is done in other parts of Europe, rather than banning sale of this produce, food would still be safe to eat.

Based on his team's tests on two monkeys and previous primate research, he also believes that transmission between cows and primates/humans is far less likely than it is between cattle.
"The efficiency of infection from cow to primate could be seven to 20 times lower than that of intraspecies infection for cattle," he said.

The incubation period for BSE transmission from cattle to human could be more than a third longer than that of human-to-human transmission, he added.

Although the present data does not provide a definitive minimum infective dose for transmission of cattle BSE to primates, Dr Deslys said it did give enough information to know that existing measures to protect our food supplies were adequate.

Continued surveillance will be required for a considerable time.

Professor James Ironside of the National CJD Surveillance Unit said, "To become infected you would need to eat an enormous amount of brain, which is not possible. " The measures taken now really give a guarantee of food safety and future crises can be avoided."

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Major Human Mad Cow Epidemic Unlikely

By Patricia Reaney on January 12, 2005
(Excerpt - for complete article please visit Reuters.co.uk)

LONDON (Reuters) - A major epidemic of the human form of mad cow disease is unlikely, scientists say.

Estimates of how many people are likely to develop the fatal brain disease from eating meat contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) have varied widely.

But researchers at Imperial College London said on Wednesday they believed only about 70 future cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) would be diagnosed in the country.
"We think that the epidemic will be quite small in terms of cases that have arisen from consumption of beef," said epidemiologist Dr Azra Ghani.

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Mad Cow Ruminations

By Wayne Allard, Republican and veterinarian, and Senior U.S. Senator from Colorado.

Tuesday's announcement by the Canadian government that a second case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow disease) in less than a month had been detected in Canada should not affect the expanded beef and cattle trade with Canada announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Jan 4.

For the past two years, I have advocated applying sound science to deciding whether to reopen the border to Canadian cattle and beef imports. Sound science is critical, because it separates fact from myth and ignores "mad cow" hysterics. Televised pictures of seizure-stricken cows draw viewers but do not represent the truth behind the image.

The border closing has created a market imbalance. For instance, a Canadian packer could buy a cow for about $17 (U.S.) per hundred-weight (cwt) and sell the processing-grade beef for about $123 (U.S.) per cwt. He also could buy a fed steer or heifer at about $67 U.S. per cwt and sell the beef for about $132 (U.S.) per cwt. In the United States, the cow would cost a packer about $55 per cwt and the beef would sell for about $125 per cwt; a fed steer or heifer would cost about $85 per cwt and the beef would sell for about $135 per cwt. This imbalance has led, in part, to the layoff of thousands of people in the processing industry across our nation.

On Jan. 4, the Agriculture Department (USDA) published a final rule that leads toward resumed trade with Canada. The rule allows for importing certain animals when certified to hail from a so-called "minimal-risk region." This is similar to how we eliminate brucellosis in cattle on a state-by-state basis.

The current situation should not be used as an excuse to stop trade resumption. The new rule is grounded in solid, sound science, and will help end a situation that has wreaked havoc on beef trade for too long. It will protect the integrity of the human food supply system and stabilize agriculture trade.

Beef trade with Canada should move forward because measures by both the United States and Canada are working as planned to ensure detection of BSE and that the beef is safe and wholesome. Canada meets the requirements for a minimal-risk region based upon a number of its actions:

• Prohibition of specified risk materials in human food.
• Import restrictions sufficient to minimize BSE exposure.
• Surveillance for BSE at levels meeting or exceeding international guidelines.
• Ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban in place and effectively enforced.
• Appropriate epidemiological investigations, risk assessment and risk mitigation measures imposed.

The finding of a second case of BSE in Canada proves the Canadian BSE surveillance system is working. A second case was not entirely unexpected, given that cattle predating the feed ban are still alive in both countries. The extensive risk assessment conducted as part of USDA's rulemaking process took into careful consideration the possibility Canada could find additional BSE cases.

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Ending Mad-Cow Skirmish

January 3, 2005 - From The Miami Herald
(Excerpt - for complete article, please visit Miami Herald)

OUR OPINION: DOWNGRADING RISK FROM CANADA BEEF A POSITIVE STEP

There were big sighs of relief on both sides of the border last week when the U.S. Agriculture Department announced that it was easing restrictions on cattle imports from Canada. The decision was the right one. It reflects an Agriculture Department finding that there is ''minimal risk'' from Canada's cattle and will help ease tensions between the United States and one of its largest trading partners...

Dozens of other countries also banned beef from Canada after the disease was found in the Canadian cow. Last month, President Bush set the policy change in motion after visiting with Prime Minister Paul Martin. Among other things, Mr. Martin talked about Canada's rigorous testing program. Last week, however, another Canadian cow, identified as a 10-year-old high-risk ''downer'' was being being tested for mad-cow disease.

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