Mad cow case suspected, agency says
Last Updated Thu, 30 Dec 2004 07:11:35 EST
OTTAWA - A federal agency says it has found what may be another case of mad cow disease – just one day after the U.S. announced plans to reopen its border to live young cattle from Canada after a 19-month ban.
Canadians have been banned from exporting live cattle to the U.S. since May 2003. (File photo)
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency raised the possibility of a new case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, early Thursday morning.
Preliminary tests finished on Wednesday showed positive results in a 10-year-old dairy cow, the agency said.
It offered few other details, except to warn that the findings aren't conclusive. Final results are expected within three to five days.
Canadian officials said they normally wouldn't publicly release results until the disease had been confirmed, but felt the U.S. plans warranted the early warning.
"Given the unique situation created by the United States' border announcement ... it was decided that the most prudent action would be to publicly announce the available information and provide stakeholders with a full understanding of the current situation," the agency said.
Less than 24 hours earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would reopen its border to nearly all Canadian exports of beef and live cattle beginning March 7.
* FROM DEC. 29, 2004: Reopening of border to cattle 'a long time coming' say Canadian ranchers
The department recognized Canada as a "minimal-risk region" for BSE, in part because of measures taken to prevent the spread of the disease.
Canadian ranchers and feedlot operators reacted with relief to the change, which would allow live animals under 30 months old and a wider variety of cuts of beef to be shipped south.
Their industry plunged into crisis when the Americans imposed the ban in May 2003, after a single case of BSE showed up in Alberta.
It isn't yet clear what impact the new suspected case will have, if any, on the U.S. plans.
The Canadian agency said no part of the animal suspected of having the disease entered the human-food or animal-feed chains.
Just fucking great,at the moment the US reoppen the border to Canadian beef,another cow is found......i hear the gates closing again.
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Well it's only a dairy cow. As long as it's destroyed and none of it's companion cows are infected than hopefully there won't be a problem. But given the USA's highly reactionary response last time, they may go off the deep end again.
How do these cows contract this virus anyways?
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Cpl Kendall wrote:Well it's only a dairy cow. As long as it's destroyed and none of it's companion cows are infected than hopefully there won't be a problem. But given the USA's highly reactionary response last time, they may go off the deep end again.
How do these cows contract this virus anyways?
Not a virus, prions, deformed protein structures, I believe... It's mostly acquired through contaminated feed that is often made from other cows grinded up.
Feed made from chickens, I think. Of course, the chickens are oft fed ground cattle, so it works.
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Cpl Kendall wrote:Well it's only a dairy cow. As long as it's destroyed and none of it's companion cows are infected than hopefully there won't be a problem. But given the USA's highly reactionary response last time, they may go off the deep end again.
It would be rather hypocritical since they've had American mad-cow incidents with cows that weren't used for slaughter and basically waved them away, but given our pathetic testing scheme, we deserve more mad cow. Canada needs to bite the bullet and start testing every goddamned cow; the idiots in the regulatory commissions who say that this is unwarranted because the disease hasn't appeared yet are FUCKING WRONG. IT IS HERE. We just don't want to do the testing necessary to show exactly how bad it is, either due to sheer stupidity or the fear that the answer won't be what we want to hear.
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Cpl Kendall wrote:
How do these cows contract this virus anyways?
Its not a virus, its caused by prions. That name comes from 'proteinaceous infectious particle'. Basically it's an evil protein structure that can make copies of its self and eat visible holes in your brain
The biggest cause is contaminated fed which had spinal and brain parts of other cows (only nerve tissue holds prions) ground into it, or in some cases the entire corpses of diseased cows ruled unfit for human consumption. That practice has since been banned widely but there is still a risk of further contamination as a result of poor slaughtering practices. Though that's more a concern for humans the for further contamination of the herds.
Thing issue is there is no test for its presence except a biopsy of the brain, and symptoms don't begin to appear for an average of 4.5 years, though periods as long as 10 years have been observed. It's apparently not directly transmissible creature to creature, but unborn calf's can be infected and can then live long enough to pass on the disease to their own young.
The inability to test of the disease while the animal and the long incubation period is why the British simply had no choice but to resort to mass slaughter as a countermeasure. And while IIRC they are working on a test which could be performed on live animals, for now at least mass slaughter and isolation of those animals which aren't, is the only really effective defence we have.
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