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Good Afternoon List Friends,
This URL was picked up this morning from the Food Safety Net clipping
service out of the University of Guelph.
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/18603-en.html
It points out that, "The identification of a single case of BSE is not a
cause for panic," said FAO's Andrew Speedy, Animal Production and Health
Division.
"It is good news that odd single cases of BSE are being picked up by
inspection. There has been no sign of an
escalation of numbers in any of the countries that have identified
isolated cases. Rather, it demonstrates that active surveillance is
picking up the one-in-a-million case."
The "one-in-a-million case" comment is interesting. After more than two
weeks following the single cow in Canada back to the source, they have
still found no other infected animals in the depopulated herds. My
personal suspicion is that they will not find any others infected, and
that they will find no source of contaminated feed either. It is more
likely that BSE, like CJD in humans, occurs spontaneously in roughly one
animal in a million. The problem in the UK was that central nervous
system tissue from one or more infected animals got into the feed of
other cattle, causing the escalation of the outbreak. Now that we have
restrictions on those feeding practices the FAO pointed out in the
article that a few cases have been found in many countries round the
world but that it has not spread because of new feed restrictions and
"effective government programs to find and destroy the disease,"
The "one-in-a-million" comment also has other implications. It suggests
that virtually every country which has cattle likely has a rare
spontaneous case of BSE, and that the only reason we have not found it
in North America until now is that we have not been checking enough
animals. An interesting thought.
Regards
Ross Gould, P.Ag.
Calgary, Alberta
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