Nick Smith, January 18, 2004

One issue we have discussed time and again during the interparliamentary exchange I’m attending in Beijing, China is the recent incidence of mad cow disease. Legislators from several countries have asked me, as a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee, about the safety of U.S. beef. One Holstein cow from a 4,000-cow dairy in Washington tested positive for BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for mad cow disease) three days before Christmas. It was the first case of BSE in the United States, and although the cow was quickly traced back to Canada, it led to many of our trading partners suspending all imports of American beef.

BSE is a degenerative, fatal disease affecting the nervous system in older cattle. BSE was first detected in 1986 in Great Britain where essentially all the cases have occurred. Its cause is still uncertain, but BSE is latent in animals for years and doesn’t infect animals until they are more than 30 months old. Most all meat animals have gone to market by that age. Cattle do not get BSE from contact with infected cattle. Rather, the disease is spread by cattle consuming feed containing brain, spinal cord tissue, or part of the lower intestine of infected animals. People get variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of BSE, by consuming the same products from BSE-infected cattle. People are not infected from the consumption of meat we buy in American stores. About 150 people have contracted vCJD since 1986, most of them in Great Britain.

The Department of Agriculture reacted strongly to the BSE discovery. The 4,000 cow herd was immediately quarantined, and to be extra safe, 10,410 pounds of raw beef was recalled from twenty animals slaughtered on the same day in the same facility as the infected cow. The infected cow’s offspring have also been located and destroyed. New regulations have been implemented to ensure safety. USDA officials also traced the animal back to its birthplace in Alberta, Canada in April 1997. (The only other BSE infection in North America occurred in May 2003, also in Alberta.) Both Canada and the United States have banned the use of animal feeds containing potentially infected parts, since August 1997. Another joint U.S.-Canadian inquiry is trying to determine what the infected cow was fed 6½ years ago before the feed ban.

I’ve told legislators from the 25 countries attending the Beijing meeting that they should resume imports of American beef. Our top export markets have all banned American beef - Japan ($1.034 billion a year), Mexico ($936 million), South Korea ($650 million), and Canada ($352 million). U.S. beef prices are down 15% to 20% for farmers since late December, and are likely stay low at least until the export restrictions are dropped. We are hopeful that most countries will soon drop their bans on U.S. beef.

I’ve been mostly impressed by the handling of this problem. The December 22 incident appears to be an isolated case within an American cattle population of between 96 and 97 million head. BSE in cattle is scary (as is vCJD in humans), but USDA reacted aggressively to protect public health. We need to continue with strong safeguards against BSE and other food pathogens, and we need more research to determine the exact cause of BSE. As I leave Asia, where we are advised not eat certain foods or drink the water, it is impressive how the problem was handled without any threat to human health. It shows the determination to keep American food products the safest in the world.

Congressman Nick Smith, a Republican, represents Michigan's 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.