USA - First 'mad cow disease' case - Countries rush to ban imports

Main Category: CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease
Article Date: 24 Dec 2003 - 0:00 PDT

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The USA (Washington State) has reported its first case of BSE (Mad Cow Disease).

Ann Veneman (Agricultural Secretary) insists US beef is safe even though a cow has tested positive (to BSE).

Some countries have responded rapidly by banning US beef imports (Japan and Korea).

The worry with mad cow disease is that there may be a link with the human variant vCJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease).

A tissue sample of the infected cow has been sent to the UK for further tests and will take a few days to come through. The UK is a leading authority on BSE. The UK (in 1986) had 178,000 cows affected and eventually destroyed 3.7 million animals. The UK's beef industry was devastated.

The US Agricultural Secretary said that the infected cow had never been destined for human consumption as it was already ill.

The Japanese authorities said that the ban on US beef imports took effect immediately until more evidence could be gathered. The South Koreans have effectively blocked all imports of US beef as well.

Canada (third largest importer of US beef) said that it will wait before deciding what to do (wait to see what the further test results show).

The countries to ban US beef so far are Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand.

Canada's beef industry, which recently had a case of BSE in its cattle, lost about US$2.5bn worth of business.

Ever since the Atkins diet became popular, the US beef industry has been experiencing a boom.

The US beef industry is mostly consumed by its domestic market (90%) with 10% of its beef going abroad. Its main foreign markets are Japan, Mexico, Canada, South Korea and Hong Kong (US Meat Export Federation).

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