Mad cow disease comes calling

Jack Neff, Contributing Editor

Public confidence in the U.S. is unshaken -- so far

The long-dreaded appearance of mad cow disease in North America finally happened in May, seemingly with the long-dreaded consequences. Stocks of beef-related companies such as Tyson Foods, McDonalds and Wendy's plunged 5 to 7 percent on the news and exports from the affected country were halted.

           

Fortunately for the U.S. beef processing industry and its customers, the cow afflicted by bovine spongiform encephelopathy [BSE] was found in Canada. And despite plenty of prominent media coverage, public reaction has been fairly muted. But while the crisis was quickly contained, it also shed an unfavorable light on the beef and feed industry and intensified calls for stepped-up regulations, possibly as strict as those found in Europe, where BSE has caused Creutzfeld-Jacob disease in about 100 people and decimated much of the continent's beef industry.

 

For all the publicity, the risk posed by the Canadian case to the U.S., or even Canada, is remote. The cow in Alberta, removed from processing for human consumption when an inspector noticed it was having trouble walking, later was slaughtered and rendered for use in non-cattle, non-ruminant feed. To date, no research has indicated BSE can pass from ruminants to non-ruminants. The cow's age indicates it may have contracted a mild case of BSE before stricter feeding standards prohibiting the use of ruminant byproducts in ruminant feed went into effect in the U.S. and Canada.

           

Despite the discovery in Alberta, the U.S. isn't considering amending feed restrictions to include a ban on the feeding of ruminant materials to all species of animals, said Lester Crawford, deputy director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, (FDA) in a June news conference. Such a standard would mirror standards already in place in Europe.

           

"We have a BSE response plan, and it's predicated on a couple of things," he said. "If we have BSE in this country and it's diagnosed and confirmed, then we'd consider some modifications [such as a total ban on ruminant use in feed]. But at this time we don't have BSE confirmed in the U.S., and so we're not making any changes in the plan. It's protected us since 1989, so we intend to keep the plan in place."

           

Science notwithstanding, widespread coverage of animal cannibalism down on the farm has made breakfast the least appetizing meal of the day for newspaper readers and seemingly made recruitment for vegetarianism easier than ever. Such practices as feeding cow blood to calves, chicken droppings to cows and restaurant leftovers to virtually anything that moves in a farmyard have made for sensational news, even if none of those practices have been linked to the spread of BSE.

 

"There is a yuck factor," admits Richard Sellers, vice president for feed control and nutrition of the Arlington, Va.-based American Feed Industry Association (AFIA). "But people are so removed from farms, and some of these practices have been going on for 50 or 60 years. Packing plants are not pleasant places either, but that hasn't stopped people from eating meat."

           

Adopting strict standards for use of animal byproducts in animal feeds, such as those found in Europe, would cost a minimum of $100 million and possibly as much as $1 billion annually. For a feed and rendering industry already hurting from a number of factors, it could be a crushing blow, Sellers said.

           

"The consumer groups are all over this," he acknowledged. "But the FDA has got to follow the science, and the science is not there [for stricter controls]. You've also got to balance some of the costs. If dead stock animals are not picked up, you're going to have a veterinary health crisis in the in the United States."