BSE: Lessons from Canada
Dec. 24th, 2003 by adminBy Justin Kastner and Douglas Powell - December 24, 2003
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/
U.S. food safety officials have been on the lookout for mad cow disease. Now that they have finally found it, they should note how Canada managed a very similar scenario just a few months ago.
A whisper of the words bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) conjures up images of the United Kingdom’s despairing bout with the disease during the 1990s. But while USDA officials should be mindful of BSE’s devastating potential (which the U.K. story tells), they should focus on the Canadian experience with BSE.
Canada’s experience reveals the value of transparently showcasing to the public a vigilant, proactive regulatory system, while acknowledging the likelihood that the disease is most likely not limited to just one animal. In Canada, this strategy has paid real dividends, engendering enough consumer confidence to yield an actual increase in domestic beef consumption. No other country with a BSE discovery has accomplished that.
Tuesday’s announcement of the presumptive discovery of a case of BSE in the U.S. will test whether the two North American giants can learn from each other. Since the 1800s, agricultural trade and scientific cooperation have been hallmarks of Canadian-American relations. Nineteenth-century tariff wars, ongoing squabbles over agricultural subsidies and softwood lumber, and last May’s discovery of mad cow disease in western Canada have all tested economic interdependence and scientific harmonization at the 49th parallel. Yet the two countries have persisted as each other’s most important trading partner and, historically, the two nations have adopted scientifically similar approaches to ensure the safety of the food supply.
Today, Canada’s and the United States’ economic partnership and scientific like-mindedness are conspicuous in international fora, and hopefully, the two countries will continue to mimic each other?s evidence-based approaches to food safety regulation.
As Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials did six months ago, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service officials should focus on the real question at hand: can the disease be controlled and contained?
Based on current information, the answer is yes, which should lend some comfort to consumers and the international community. Canada’s and America’s findings were both made courtesy of proactive,
vigilant surveillance systems.
In the Washington state case, a veterinary inspector followed routine procedures by singling out a sick animal and requesting that it be tested for BSE. High-risk materials (including the brain and spinal cord) were removed from the animal, and a series of tests were begun.
These will (presumptively) culminate in tomorrow’s Christmas-Day confirmation in the UK that the Washington state case is in fact BSE.
But even ahead of this confirmation, USDA officials went ahead and quarantined the herd from which the diseased animal was sourced.
Meanwhile, other questions remain. Like Canada, the U.S. must now begin an investigation into how the animal might have contracted the disease. The BSE find, while reassuringly made before high-risk materials from the infected cow made it into the food chain, begs several questions. The first of these cascade from whether or not the animal was born in the U.S.. If US-born and US-reared, how many other herd mates are infected? BSE is a slowly progressing, fatal nervous disorder of adult cattle that
causes a characteristic staggering gait and is similar to a handful of rare, neurological diseases that affect humans and other animals. While North American regulators have detected and summarily dealt with BSE before (in 1993 and May 2003 in Canada), both Canada and the U.S. have not yet experienced widespread BSE outbreaks like those seen in the U.K. This is a tribute to skilled veterinarians and regulatory programs that, situated in the context of elusive science, are cautious.
In the U.K., BSE took root via production practices that involved the feeding to cattle protein from cattle infected with BSE. For years regulators understood this connection (in veterinarian lingo, the “ruminant-to-ruminant” feeding link), prompting the British to ban such feed in 1989, yet they failed to enforce the rules on the books at least until 1996, when public health research demonstrated that the consumption of
BSE-infected beef was strongly linked to a new variant of the human disease Creutzfelt-Jacob disease (vCJD). In 1997, recognizing that the input of BSE–infected feed into cattle production might spawn an outbreak of BSE, and following the suggestion of a link between BSE and vCJD, the use of ruminant protein in ruminant feed was banned in North America. Checks by CFIA and the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration ensure that compliance by feed mills is high.
But banning ruminant-to-ruminant feeding practices may not, in fact, be a sure firewall for the spread of BSE. That is why, since 1990, both the U.S. and Canada have banned cattle imports from several European countries, and during the last few years has extended the ban to other countries. USDA must explore, as CFIA did, the following questions: Where did the animal originate? Were there, perhaps, lapses in feed manufacturing procedures? Will other animals test positive? Indeed, the great unknown is
how many cattle are quietly harbouring the disease and potentially passing it on to meat eaters. How are sickly animals being dealt with? Unlike the Alberta BSE case, which was completely removed from the human food chain, muscle meat from the Washington state cow was allowed forward for futher processing. Should this practice be allowed, even though muscle meat has been shown to be of neglig!ible BSE risk?
Publicly asking and answering these questions is where the Canadian experience comes in. Dealing with these legitimate questions in a transparent manner is an important extension of a vigilant regulatory
system. As CFIA opened their books to domestic and international watchdog groups, they undertook to answer them. In doing so, they gained public confidence; and despite international bans on Canadian beef, domestic demand went up.
Like microbial foodborne illness, as surveillance activities increase, more cases will be found, creating a paradox of headlines against a food safety infrastructure that has never been stronger. Transparency, along with demonstrable efforts that actions match words are the best way to enhance consumer confidence.
Justin Kastner is a research assistant professor in agricultural security at Kansas State University. Douglas Powell is an associate professor and scientific director of the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph, and the co-author of the 1997 book, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk.
