AR-News: Mad cow "indigenous" to North America

[jim robertson]

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/107598594853210.xml

Mad cow has home on U.S. ranges

International experts say the disease is "indigenous" to North America, and 
it will take drastic measures to stop its spread

02/05/04

JIM BARNETT

RIVERDALE, Md. -- Mad cow disease probably has been established in North 
America for more than a decade, and Americans should be prepared for the 
discovery of more domestic cases as it spreads through herds.

A panel of international experts released these findings Wednesday to U.S. 
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, also urging the Department of Agriculture 
to toughen protections put into place following the Dec. 23 discovery of an 
infected Holstein in Washington state.

Those protections, while helpful, are not sufficient to keep mad cow disease 
from spreading further, or "amplifying," within the North American herd, the 
researchers concluded.

"We need more, much more," said Ulrich Kihm, a Swiss scientist who led the 
advisory panel. "If we don't accept and implement measures -- strong 
measures --then we have this amplification cycle going on and on."

Will Hueston, a veterinarian at the University of Minnesota, estimated that 
more testing would uncover the presence of more mad cow disease: "I wouldn't 
be surprised by two or three more cases. I think in the worst-case scenario, 
from everything we know to date, we're talking a dozen or maybe two dozen 
(cases)."

The lone Washington case rocked the U.S. beef industry and to some degree 
the public's confidence in the safety of the beef supply. Dozens of foreign 
nations blocked the importation of U.S. beef as processors in Oregon and 
Washington scrambled to recall, in several states, more than a million 
pounds of processed meat, fats and proteins traced to the infected cow.

The panel released its findings to a restive group of regulators, scientists 
and meat-industry representatives Wednesday in Riverdale. Significantly, it 
called bovine spongiform encephalitis, or BSE, "indigenous" in the United 
States and Canada and built its proposals around halting transmission of the 
disease:

Test and dispose of all "downer" cattle more than 30 months old. Now, cattle 
unable to walk are barred from entering the food chain and may elude 
testing.

Test all cattle more than 30 months old that exhibit signs of mad cow 
disease, die before slaughter or are slaughtered under emergency 
circumstances.

Eliminate high-risk tissues, including brains and central nervous tissue of 
cattle 30 months or older, from animal feed and human food supplies.

Expand feed restrictions to bar all mammalian and poultry protein from 
cattle feed.

Implement a national animal identification system.

The panel's assertion that BSE was indigenous to North American herds was 
its most controversial. Although the Washington cow was born in Canada, the 
report warned: "The significance of this BSE (mad cow) case cannot be 
dismissed by considering it 'an imported case.' "

Kihm said he thought that infection of the North American herd had begun 
before the disease was diagnosed extensively in Britain and linked to human 
deaths but that it only recently had spread to detectable levels in Canada 
and the United States.

"We believe that the infection in North America took place at least 10 years 
ago," Kihm said. "You need one cycle before you have a few animals positive, 
and you don't see them in the first cycle. You need a second or a third."

The findings were presented to a USDA subcommittee appointed by Veneman. 
Some members expressed frustration.

"It's still possible most, if not all, here came from somewhere else," said 
Robert Eckroade, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. "Indigenous 
means we're going to have it for years, and I'm not ready to support that."

Tobin Armstrong, a rancher from Texas, said the panel's proposals would 
impose enormous costs on the cattle industry when the threat to human health 
appeared to be minimal.

"We're talking about going to draconian measures to measure something we 
don't fully understand," Armstrong said. "What are we trying to protect 
ourselves against?"

Kihm said that extra care is warranted precisely because scientists don't 
fully understand the disease or how it is transmitted. Therefore, they 
should not resist taking actions that they know can reduce risk of spread, 
he said.

"You have to realize that you can't measure the effect of all your measures 
implemented today," he said. "You have to wait five, six years."

Kihm also said he disagreed with a study from the Harvard Center for Risk 
Analysis concluding that existing precautions, such as the feed ban, had 
arrested the spread of mad cow and eventually would eradicate the disease.

"The disease will spread, spread all over the place" if no additional steps 
are taken, he said.

Veneman was briefed on the panel's findings but has not yet decided whether 
to act on them, said Julie Quick, a spokeswoman.

In Washington state, meanwhile, legislators on Wednesday considered a 
half-dozen bills that would change how state agencies and farmers deal with 
sick or dead animals. A bill expanding the state's power to quarantine 
animals suspected of diseases passed the Senate Tuesday and is being 
considered by the House.

Other bills, awaiting committee approval, would give the state power to 
require animal identification programs; create a board to address disposal 
of dead cattle; suspend the business tax on beef wholesalers until Japan, 
Mexico and Korea lift their bans on U.S. beef; and make it a misdemeanor to 
violate federal rules on animal feeds or to transport downer animals for 
nonmedical reasons.

Staff Writer Andy Dworkin contributed to this report. Jim Barnett: 
503-294-7604; jim.barnett at newhouse.com







"I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
Albert Einstein

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