As beef producers worry another positive case of BSE could stall their recovery process,no one knows how trading partners might react.
“It’s politics and emotion that have ruled BSE from Day 1,” said Neil Jahnke, past-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
When a single case last May halted all international trade in ruminant products, Canadian consumer confidence never waned. Even when a second case turned up in Washington state on Dec. 23, confidence remained.
In comparison, cases in Europe and Japan eroded confidence and beef consumption plummeted.
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That support does not mean the Canadian beef industry is complacent. The cattlemen’s ass-ociation formed a small working group that regularly meets with government and other industry par-tners to discuss possible scenarios if the border does not reopen or another case is discovered.
For scientists like Canadian Food Inspection Agency veterinarian Gary Little, a greater concern is exaggerating the risk of BSE to human and animal health.
As a member of the BSE working group, he knows other diseases like foot-and-mouth are far more serious because they are contagious and affect the livestock population as well as the economy.
“One of the big challenges we all have is to try and keep this disease in some amount of perspective and it is very easy for things to get away on us,” he said.
Canada has run a BSE surveillance program since 1992 and last July legislated the removal of specified risk materials from the meat supply.
“There is no need for this overexaggerated response and closing of borders. If we can move other countries to a more moderating response, I don’t think BSE will have the same impact in other countries when they have diagnosed (cases.) It won’t likely hijack research dollars and research attention away from diseases that have a far greater significance on human well-being,” he said.
Fewer than 25 countries have had positive cases and fewer than 150 people have been infected with variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease, thought to be linked to eating BSE-infected beef.
CFIA analysis says the actual number of infected animals present in the cattle population is likely extremely low, especially since a ban imposed in the summer of 1997 keeps rendered ruminants out of the feed given to other ruminants.
Considering there are about five million adult cattle in Canada and only one case was found here, the incidence is far below one in a million cases, placing Canada within a minimum risk category.
