Within days of the latest BSE finding in the United States, agriculture minister Chuck Strahl was on the phone to U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Johanns assuring him it would be business as usual.
“I assured him that from our point of view, just as he assured us at the end of January, it makes no difference to our international trading between our countries,” Strahl told a March 14 news conference. He had called Johanns that morning.
“And really, because it is based on science, that’s the reassurance that the international community needs to see as well.”
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The U.S. is on shaky ground assuring international customers its system is safe. The Japanese halted trade with the U.S. after a dispute when backbone was found in a shipment of veal earlier this year.
The U.S. investigated the situation and submitted its report to the Japanese authorities.
Japan confirmed its 24th domestic BSE case last week in a 14-year-old beef cow diagnosed after it had difficulty rising after giving birth. This marks the first case in a Japanese beef animal. All of Japan’s previous cases were in dairy cattle.
Investigators from the Alabama and U.S. departments of agriculture are continuing to trace the history of the American cow diagnosed March 13.
A private veterinarian in Alabama submitted the sample of a downer beef cow and all tests returned positive for the brain wasting disease.
The carcass was buried on the farm and last week government agriculture workers excavated the remains to examine the cow’s teeth to estimate its age.
Dentition has determined the cow is at least 10 years old, meaning it was born before the 1997 ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban. DNA samples were collected to match suspected siblings and offspring.
The cow resided on an Alabama farm for about one year and investigators are trying to learn where it came from before it was purchased at auction.
The U.S. Animal Plant Health Inspection Service said a six-week-old black bull calf has been matched to the cow. The calf has been quarantined off the farm for observation.
