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New Canada mad cow case won't hurt US trade-Johanns WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Canada's latest case of mad cow disease, its eighth since 2003, will not affect beef trade relations with the United States, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said on Wednesday. "I do not anticipate that this will change our trading relationship with Canada at all," Johanns told Reuters in a telephone interview. "Currently beef coming into the United States (from Canada) is from animals under 30 months old. There just isn't a risk there." The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said earlier on Wednesday that final tests had confirmed mad cow disease in an animal estimated to be between eight and 10 years old. This would mean it likely contracted the disease through contaminated feed sometime before a 1997 feed ban or during its early implementation. The animal is Canada's eighth case of the disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), since the first native-born case in 2003. Johanns noted that while current trade would be unaffected, Washington had postponed plans to broaden imports from Canada to include beef products from animals older than 30 months. "We have pulled back the older animal piece that was going through the process and we are taking a look at that and factoring in any additional information that we can get relative to the BSE risk in Canada," he said. The United States shut off trade with Canada after the discovery of mad cow disease in 2003 in a dairy cow imported from Canada. Its attempts to subsequently restart beef imports were initially derailed by lawsuits brought by American ranchers group R-CALF, which said Canadian meat posed a health risk to both U.S. cattle and consumers. Washington successfully won an appeal last summer to re-open the border, on the grounds that U.S. imports of young Canadian cattle pose a negligible risk of spreading mad cow disease. The United States has reported three cases of mad cow disease, including the 2003 case, to Canada's eight. Those numbers are tiny compared with the tens of thousands of cases of the deadly, brain-wasting disease that spread among cattle in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. Some industry observers said on Wednesday that Canada's ongoing problems with BSE would directly affect U.S. meat exports because of cross-border beef trade between the two. "Until aggressive steps are taken, Canada poses a significant risk for BSE and the U.S. Agriculture Department should respond by closing the border until they can scientifically determine just how widespread this .. is," said Bill Bullard, chief executive of U.S. rancher lobby group R-CALF. But Johanns said that would send a "very very negative signal." "What we are doing, and I think with some success, is encouraging trading partners to honour international standards in the trade of beef. If I were to do what R-CALF is wanting, that would send the signal that we expect others to live by international rules but we won't be living by them ourselves and...we'd pay a heavy price for that." |
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This page was last updated on Monday, June 02, 2008. |
