January 25, 2005

Canada sees beef trade with US resuming March 7

Canada is confident the United States will finally open its border to Canadian beef and cattle on March 7, despite the discovery of two cases of mad cow disease in Canada in the past month, top animal health officials said on Monday.

"The (U.S. Department of Agriculture has not indicated any reluctance at this point to move forward with the March 7 rule," Canada's chief veterinary officer, Brian Evans, told reporters.

Evans briefed reporters on the latest two of four confirmed Canadian-born cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the brain-wasting disease more commonly known as mad cow or BSE

A case was heard of how an eight-year-old dairy cow was confirmed with BSE on Jan. 2, although no other animal from its herd has tested positive, Evans said In the case of a six-year-old beef cow confirmed to have mad cow disease on Jan. 11, only a handful of animals in its herd remain to be tested and all results so far have been negative, he said.

Beef and cattle shipments into the United States were stalled indefinitely after news of Canada's first case of BSE broke in May 2003. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has said it suspects the animals may have consumed contaminated feed that could trigger BSE.

The Jan. 11 beef cow was born after a ban was put in place in 1997 on using protein made from cattle and other ruminants in cattle feed -- a practice thought to spread the disease.

"If our feed ban had not achieved what it was designed to do then certainly with the intensity of our surveillance program we should be finding significantly more animals," Evans said.

"More importantly, if the feed ban had not done what it was designed to do, the age of these animals would be progressively younger and younger," Evans said as U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials were scheduled to land in Ottawa for meetings on the issue.

On Friday USDA Undersecretary Bill Hawks affirmed the March 7 date for resuming imports of Canadian beef even though some members of Congress urged delay until more is known about mad cow disease in Canada.

"We think that (the U.S. officials' visit) is a very important element of them being able to go back and make sure that the decision-makers, as the rule is reviewed by the committees and as it is reviewed by Congress, that they take full account of factual information," Evans said.