OKOTOKS, Alta. – There are many reasons to test cattle for BSE, but most have little to do with food safety.
“Testing for surveillance to determine what the health status of the herd is, is entirely different than testing for food safety,” said veterinarian Kee Jim of Feedlot Health Services.
Universal testing to improve entry to offshore markets is not likely to succeed, he said in an interview at the Canadian Hereford Association annual meeting in Okotoks Aug. 7.
“The opening of additional markets will not help the beef industry in Canada because we have a bottleneck in processing,” he said.
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“Testing at this point in time for market access would not make sense. You have all the market access you need for beef in a box.”
Removing specified risk materials where the infectious agents most likely reside is a more effective form of food safety than screening animals for the disease, he said.
Recent criticism from Alberta’s auditor general suggesting Canada may not meet its testing requirements is unfair, the same meeting heard from Bob Church, a University of Calgary geneticist and rancher.
Canadian regulatory agencies have adequate time to set up testing procedures and find enough samples to meet international requirements.
“There are enough cattle being killed in our commercial plants right now to meet our testing requirements,” he said. Church does not agree with 100 percent testing.
“I’m against testing all animals because that is a very slippery slope. The next question is, where did that abnormal prion come from?”
Prions, abnormal proteins thought to cause BSE, can occur for a number of reasons beside BSE infection, including head injury.
More scientists believe the animal’s genetic structure and environment, combined with exposure to infectious agents, may result in a transmissible encephalopathy in a variety of species.
But producers need to become more educated on this disease to effectively explain the situation to consumers.
For example, Japan tests all its beef animals to save face with its consumers. Canada kills more cattle in a week than Japan kills in a year, so testing all animals there is less daunting than here.
In addition, Japan could not certify it had disease-free protein supplements, said Church. Japan imported animal-derived protein material from around the world without adequate identification and traceback. Much of it ended up in milk replacer for dairy calves. Most of Japan’s BSE cases have appeared in mature dairy animals, he said.
To date, there is no test to diagnose BSE in live animals. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has approved Prionics and Bio-Rad tests to examine brain stem tissue for possible infection. Test results can take up to five days.
