Good Morning AJ
What took so long?
Probably at least 3 reasons:
1. Apathy/smugness - Until the May 20 2003 discovery of the one cow with
BSE in Alberta, and later another in Washington State, we in North
America seemed to think that there was no risk. We were isolated from
the problems in Europe so we didn't have to be as careful.
2. Research - Evidence (probably too optimistic) from some British
research that calves were not infected when injected with blood products
from BSE infected cattle. Therefore blood products were not thought to
be "specified risk materials".
3. Economics - Very strong resistance from the rendering industry to
changing practices. By restricting the use of blood products in cattle
rations they would loose an important potential market. They argued
that such a ban was not justified anyway because of the British
studies. If the use of rendered animal products as an animal feed
source was banned, an important income from byproducts would be lost,
and there would be a very serious problem of disposal of of millions of
tons of processing waste.
The reluctance to ban the "mechanically separated meat" was also
economic. Mechanical separation is a lot more cost effective than
manual separation.
We now know that, even if any of the above arguments are valid, the new
regulations are required to maintain public confidence in the safety
measures to protect their food supply.
An additional note: After the discovery of the BSE cow in Alberta there
was a strong discussion in Canada for regulations similar to the ones
announced in the U.S. last week. However, until the US case, their
packing and rendering industry saw no need, and we were reluctant to
adopt regulations which were inconsistent with theirs because of the
close interconnections of our livestock industries in North America.
That was the reason for Dennis Laycraft's expectation that there would
be a joint US-Canadian announcement.
Regards
Ross Gould, P.Ag. (Retired)
Calgary, Alberta
AJ Salisbury wrote:
>
> What took so long?
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ross Gould" <srgould@shaw.ca>
> To: "Black-Ink" <black-ink@angus.mystery.com>
> Cc: "GRAZE-L POSTING" <graze-l@witt.ac.nz>
> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 6:32 AM
> Subject: [Graze-l] US Rules Issued On Animal Feed And Use Of Disabled
> Cattle - LONG!
>
> > Good Afternoon List Friends,
> > This is a long snip of an article in the New York Times/Associated
> > Press/Calgary Herald. I received it through a repost of the current
> > issue of the CAHI (Canadian Animal Health Institute) "Clippings"
> > service.
> >
> > A couple of points to note:
> > 1. The new rules ban the "feeding cow blood and chicken wastes to
> > cattle.
> >
> > 2. "Because a product called mechanically separated meat may carry
> > infectious tissue, it will also be banned."
> >
> > 3. "Dennis Laycraft of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association was cited as
> > saying Ottawa is planning its own feed ban on animal blood and had
> > intended to make the announcement in conjunction with the U.S., adding,
> > "I'm not sure what happened (to the joint announcement), but we expect
> > Canada to move ahead within the next week or so."
> >
> > Regards
> > Ross Gould, P.Ag. (Retired)
> > Calgary, Alberta
> > ==========================
> > Rules Issued On Animal Feed And Use Of Disabled Cattle
> >
> > January 27, 2004
> > New York Times/AP/Calgary Herald
> >
> > The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to these stories,
> > imposed new rules yesterday to prevent the spread of mad cow disease,
> > including a ban on feeding cow blood and chicken wastes to cattle.
