BSE Discovered - Bad or Good?

Yesterday it was announced that a dairy cow in California tested positive for an atypical form of BSE, which means she probably developed it on her own rather than through infected feed.

The cow never entered the food chain and is no threat to humans whatsoever.

Here is a link to a Reuters article
In my humble opinion;
The world reacts negatively every time a new case is discovered, trades are stopped, relations squandered, markets drop, and a few less steaks are probably ate. Really though, finding these animals is a sign that the safeguards that have been established are working and that is a really, really good thing!

Here in Canada we have taken great steps in preventing an outbreak of BSE and according to the BSE Info website, “experts agree there is no risk of a BSE epidemic in Canada or USA”.
Our safeguards include;

• the removal of specified risk material (brain and spinal cord tissue) from the human food chain
• controlling imports from high risk countries
• testing high risk animals to monitor the prevalence of the disease
• a feed ban which prohibits feeding meat and bone meal made from ruminant animals to other ruminant animals. It also includes the removal of specified risk material from all animal feeds, pet food, and fertilizers.
• the Canadian Cattle Identification Program where all animals must be tagged with a registered ID tag before leaving its herd of origin, this allows for quick traceability, containment, and elimination if a threatening disease is discovered.

With all these things in effect it should be expected that a case is going to pop up here and there, especially if the disease can develop on it’s own, but we should also be rest assured that the disease is NOT going to enter our food chain or harm us. And every time we see a headline in the news talking about BSE being discovered in a cow (which is very, very seldom), we should be thankful that they are looking for it rather than scared that they found it.

And a little “food” for thought:
The odds of contracting the human form of mad cow disease is 1 in 40,000,000; the odds of choking on food and dying are 1 in 370,000.

Kimberley