January 3, 2004 London Free Press (Ontario, Canada) editorial

Either come up to the levels of testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) demanded in the European Union and Japan, or be relegated forever to the sidelines.

Earlier this week, we said that while this is the ideal, risk must be balanced against cost. Now we know the testing cost -- $20 to $25 US for each carcass, which is only pennies a pound. Those figures come from Dr. Michael Hansen, a biologist at Consumers Union, who has been studying mad cow disease since 1987.

The cost of doing nothing -- or, in the case of U.S. agencies, only spinning the story to blame Canada -- is astronomical. Export markets will remain closed to North American beef.

Hansen says Japan, the largest consumer of U.S. beef exports, may be making even more stringent demands on imports than its earlier stipulation that all cattle over 30 months be tested. In the last six months, Japan has had two positive BSE cases in animals aged 20 and 21 months. In Europe and Britain, all animals for human consumption are tested for BSE.

While Canada's major export market is the U.S., this country, too, will be under pressure to meet that standard. Delay by the Americans in fully lifting the ban on Canadian cattle since the first case of BSE was found in Alberta on May 20 was influenced by Japan. That country threatened to ban U.S. beef if it lifted the embargo on Canadian beef because the two countries' systems are integrated.

Some think testing every cow is overkill, since only one BSE case has been found in each of Canada and the U.S.

John Stauber, co-author of Mad Cow U.S.A., and executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisc., disagrees. He says 300 million cattle in the U.S. have been slaughtered in the last nine years and only 30,000 were tested for BSE -- one in 10,000. So, we won't know how bad it might be.

Stauber also wants North American standards for feed brought up to those of Europe. Here, calves can be legally fed cattle-blood protein, a hazard for spreading BSE. He says 1997 feed regulations designed to stop the feeding of bonemeal from rendered cattle back to cattle are not a ban, but merely labelling. After farmers buy it, who knows which animals eat it?

The final defence is the BSE tests, the subject of conflicting messages last week, with a Canadian Food Inspection Agency official saying there would be more testing, only to be refuted by federal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller.

And while provincial Agriculture Minister Steve Peters may well be right that Ontario beef is among the world's safest, that, alone, isn't good enough. Perception is crucial.

Canada needs to make a statement by going to BSE testing of all cattle for consumption.

New tests are not only inexpensive, but results are back within hours, in time to prevent a positive cow from getting into the food system. One of the new tests was developed by Dr. Stanley Prusiner of California, 1997 Nobel Prize winner in medicine for the discovery of prions (mutated proteins that cause BSE). His test costs two to three cents a pound.

Is that too much for doing the right thing?

Is that too much for your peace of mind?

Is that too much to get Canadian beef (80 per cent of it exported) back on the world market?