Billings, Mont. – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has just announced another discovery of a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – this time in a 13-year-old Alberta beef cow.

“Although, as CFIA acknowledges, it did not improve its feed ban until mid-2007 and now claims to have a ‘suite of robust BSE controls,’ these controls are inadequate to protect the U.S. from this unnecessary and avoidable risk,” said R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max Thornsberry, a Missouri veterinarian who also chairs the group’s animal health committee. “It is important to note that this latest incident is actually Canada’s 12th indigenous case of BSE, because the BSE-positive cow discovered in Washington state in December 2003 was imported into the U.S. from Canada. Counting the case of BSE detected in 1993 in one of the cattle Canada imported from Great Britain, Canada has detected a total of 13 BSE cases.”

Eleven plaintiffs that represent both cattle-producer and consumer organizations recently filed a lawsuit against the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which argues that USDA’s recently implemented over-30-month rule (OTM Rule), which allows the importation of older cattle and beef from Canada, violates USDA’s own regulations. Current regulations prohibit imports of beef from BSE-affected countries that were derived from cattle born before an effective feed ban was implemented. However, the OTM Rule is in conflict with those regulations because it allows beef from cattle of any age to be imported into the United States.

“Had this 13-year-old cow not been detected under Canada’s limited, voluntary testing program, the meat from that cow would have been eligible for export to the United States,” Thornsberry pointed out. “OTM cattle in a BSE-affected country bear an inherently higher risk for the disease, and USDA is acting irresponsibly by allowing both higher-risk beef and higher-risk cattle into the U.S. food supply.

“Also, because Canada does not conduct mandatory testing for BSE like all other countries do that have detected multiple cases of BSE born after the date of feed ban implementation, there’s a high likelihood that other BSE-infected cattle and beef from BSE-infected cattle are going undetected and making their way to beef consumers here,” he warned. “Without country-of-origin labeling (COOL) in place, consumers cannot distinguish U.S. beef from Canadian beef, so they have no way of avoiding this risk.”

“Canada still doesn’t do sufficient BSE testing to determine the magnitude of its BSE problem, and because we are currently commingling Canadian cattle and beef with U.S. cattle and beef, our efforts to restore beef export markets lost since 2003 continue to be compromised,” said R-CALF USA Trade Committee Co-Chair Eric Nelson. “In addition, USDA continues to ignore the fact that there is a hot spot of BSE infectivity in the Alberta Province. Canada’s limited testing reveals that eight of Canada’s 12 native BSE cases were detected in Alberta.

“It is unconscionable that USDA would not at least allow U.S. cattle producers to differentiate their high-quality U.S. beef from Canadian beef with a country-of-origin label so we can maintain consumer confidence in our product and gain full resumption of U.S. exports,” he asserted. “As things stand now, the U.S. cattle industry is unnecessarily tying its reputation to the BSE-afflicted Canadian cattle herd.”

R-CALF USA calls on USDA to take immediate action to protect the integrity and viability of the U.S. cattle industry by: 

Immediately reversing the OTM Rule.
Immediately reversing its policy of granting access for imports to the U.S. market before the U.S. regains full market access in foreign countries. 
Immediately begin differentiating beef produced exclusively from U.S.-born cattle from beef produced from foreign cattle with a country-of-origin label.
Immediately requiring the Canadian government, as a condition of importing cattle under 30 months of age, to increase BSE testing to the level necessary to determine the true prevalence of BSE in the Canadian cattle herd, including mandatory testing of all high-risk cattle.

“USDA should take swift action to protect U.S. consumers and the U.S. cattle herd and to alleviate any negative perceptions major beef importers may have regarding Canada’s BSE status, to keep from further eroding our chances of reopening lost export markets,” Nelson said.

“This is still another example of why lifting the ban on OTM cattle from Canada was premature,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, which is a consumer organization that also is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the OTM Rule. “The USDA should immediately reinstitute the ban because it is obvious that Canada has an animal health problem that could impact human public health.”

Besides R-CALF USA and Food & Water Watch, organizational plaintiffs include the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association; the Center for Food Safety; the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation; Public Citizen, which has 90,000 members; and the Consumer Federation of American, with 50 million members. Individual plaintiffs include South Dakota cattle producers Herman Schumacher, Robert Mack, Ernie Mertz and Wayne Nelson.

“Based on USDA’s so-called ‘sound science,’ one would assume that it is time for emergency measures for ‘safe science,’” said Mertz.

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