06/06/06 BSE Changes

BSE Changes. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The World Animal Health Organization - also known as the OIE - recently reviewed its international health and safety standards for countries dealing with BSE and made a significant change to its definitions of "risk categories." Under old OIE rules - a country had to go seven years from the last date a case of BSE was discovered before being classified as low-risk. Now, the OIE says a country can be classified as a "negligible risk" for BSE risk if 11 years have passed since the date of birth of the last infected animal or animals. R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard says the new OIE rule is good news for U.S. cattle producers because the United States will soon be eligible for the lowest BSE risk designation. BULLARD: Under the new standard it raises a concern about Canada because half of Canada's BSE cases, they've had a total of six, three of those cases we born after 1997 which was the date of their feed ban. The last case was born in the year 2000 so we now have evidence that shows that the BSE agent has been circulating at least as recently as the year 2000. What we don't know is when did that feed ban actually become effective? And we won't know that until Canada does far more testing. But Bullard points out that`s not the case for Canada. BULLARD: The case that was identified in Texas they said was 12 years old, the case identified in Alabama was more than 10 years old. So the United States after testing almost three quarter of a million animals has detected only 2 cases born long before the feed ban providing us a strong level of, or a high level of confidence that our feed ban put in place in 1997 has been effective in arresting the disease and that's good news for the U.S. Indeed - Bullard says Canada`s BSE testing program doesn`t meet OIE guidelines. And he says the U.S. border should remain closed to Canadian beef and cattle until Canada ramps up its BSE testing program. But in the meantime - Bullard says U.S. consumers should certainly be able to choose between U.S. and Canadian beef through mandatory country-of-origin labeling...tape BULLARD: It is irrational for the U.S. to allow beef from a country where the risk of BSE is unknown into this country and allowing it to be commingled with U.S. beef so it cannot be differentiated by U.S. consumers. We need to change that policy. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.