August 18, 2010

 

Australian producers blame US for sending mad cow beef

An Australian union of cattle producers and consumer advocates has accused the US of shipping beef despite a ban due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.

 

USDA figures show that beef-including live cattle, carcasses, whole cuts and processed meat-has been exported to Australia throughout the ban, which began in 2003 after an outbreak of mad cow disease in the US.

 

Mr Carter took the information to a Senate inquiry into foreign beef imports and was later told by the Department of Agriculture that the figures were a ''mistake.''

 

''I nearly fell off my chair when I saw all this [beef] coming in to Australia. (The US government) just happens to have been making mistakes on three websites every month for the past 10 years,'' said John Carter, of the Australian Beef Association, an independent lobby group.'

 

A US government official said the beef export data largely comprised meat produced in non-BSE countries that had either been processed in US factories or shipped to Australia via the US.

 

''US Customs isn't asking the question if it's someone else's beef. Our export data doesn't always 100% reflect what has arrived in the country,'' said Grant Pettrie, agricultural counsellor at the US embassy in Canberra.

 

The federal Department of Agriculture said it had not issued any import permits for fresh or frozen US beef since 2003. But consumer health advocates are worried Australian beef sent to the US for processing could become contaminated.

 

''We have a situation where the Australian Red Cross won't allow people who lived in the UK during (mad cow outbreak) to donate blood-it is very similar to the cross-contamination issue. There's an awful lot of gaps in this 'reassurance process'. Where is the evidence, where is the paperwork?'' said Vida Thomson, a campaigner opposed to the beef ban being relaxed.

 

Mr Pettrie said shipments could not leave the US without being certified by a government inspector to the standards of the recipient country.

 

A Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said it was confident ''stringent certification process'' protected Australian beef in the US against contamination.

 

Australia was set to lift the ban in February but the Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, abandoned the plan in favour of a two-year risk assessment study.