July 3, 2006

 

US beef producer group urges Canada to tighten feed rules further

 

 

While Canada has tightened its feed rules to prevent mad cow disease last week, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF) has urged Canada to do more to bring the country's feed rules to be on par with European levels.

 

R-CALF has sought to prevent the US from declaring Canada a minimal-risk country for mad cow disease because of it is concerns that the Canadian feed ban has not been appropriately implemented.

 

The recommendation to prohibit the use of risky materials for all animal feeds in Canada was first recommended by the International Review Team, a group of international mad cow disease experts that evaluated Canada's resistance to the disease as early as 2003.

 

Canada recently detected three new cases of mad cow disease in cattle born after its feed ban was implemented in 1997, with two of those cases in cattle born about three years after the ban, according to R-CALF.

 

R-CALF said it would continue to urge Canada to take steps such as banning all blood meal and mammalian protein in all cattle feed, said R-CALF vice president and Region 6 director Max Thornsberry.

 

R-CALF chief executive Bill Bullard said the organisation is urging Canada to heighten its level of mad cow testing so it can accurately monitor the efficacy of its improved feed ban.

 

Canada's recent ban on specified risk materials in all animal feed had been implemented in Europe as early as 1990. But even that was seen to be ineffective at curbing the disease.

 

In 1996, the measures were tightened to include mammalian protein.

 

In 2001, Europe again expanded its feed ban to blood meal. 

 

The US and Canada should adopt the more stringent measures applied in Europe, Bullard said.

 

R-CALF also urges banning SRMs from all cattle older than 12 months, rather than those 30 months old, as Canada does now.

 

Of the three mad cow cases found in the US, one originated in the same area of Canada where the other Canadian cases were found.

 

In the past year, two more cattle with mad cow disease were found, a 12-year-old cow in Texas and a 10-year-old cow in Alabama.

 

While more extensive testing of the US herd has not found any indication that mad cow cases are still circulating in the United States after 1997, the FDA should still tighten feed rules to prevent the possible circulation of the disease in the US, Thornsberry said.

 

In fact, FDA acknowledged over two years ago that improvements were needed, but no action was taken, Bullard said.