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Anthrax outbreak worst on record in Canada

PORKER

Well-known member
Anthrax outbreak worst on record
At least 28 herds now under quarantine
Rod Nickel, The StarPhoenix
Published: Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The anthrax outbreak east of Saskatoon is the worst on record in Saskatchewan, with at least 28 herds now under quarantine and 113 suspicious animal deaths.

The numbers of both are climbing and may continue to do so throughout the summer, said Dr. Sandra Stephens, a Saskatoon-based veterinary program specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

"It would appear, at this point, we probably have more premises involved than we've had in previous cases of anthrax in Saskatchewan," she said.

CFIA records date back 25 years.

The CFIA continues to vaccinate all animals on farms that have tested positive for anthrax from its reserve supply. Some veterinarians in private practice, however, have run out of vaccine.

"This is an area that doesn't typically see anthrax, so veterinarians don't typically have it in stock," Stephens said in a media conference call.

There is no shortage of vaccine with the manufacturer, Stephens said, only a challenge of getting it to the area quickly enough.

More than half of the quarantined farms have been re-tested and confirmed for anthrax at the CFIA's laboratory in Lethbridge.

The quarantined farms fall within four rural municipalities: Spalding and St. Peter east of Humboldt and Willow Creek and Kinistino southeast of Prince Albert. Most farms under quarantine raise cattle, but operations with horses, swine, bison and white-tailed deer have also been quarantined, Stephens said.

Farmers who have lost animals to anthrax may qualify for an indemnity of $500 a head for cattle and $350 per horse. The indemnity is available to encourage farmers to report anthrax cases and to dispose properly of carcasses.

Anthrax is caused by spore-forming bacteria that can spread among animals through contaminated feed, soil or pasture during grazing.

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DiamondSCattleCo

Well-known member
Anthrax is actually in the ground all over North America. It takes certain wet conditions to bring the spores to surface where the cattle can either eat them, or breathe them in. Due to the wet conditions in North East Saskatchewan, I'm a little surprised it hasn't went further. Thankfully, they're starting to catch up on the vaccine now (mines here on Monday), so we should be able to contain it. And from now on, this little cowboys critters get Anthrax vaccinated each and every year.

So much for my plans to move to organic beef, at least for a few years anyway.

Rod
 

Econ101

Well-known member
DiamondSCattleCo said:
Anthrax is actually in the ground all over North America. It takes certain wet conditions to bring the spores to surface where the cattle can either eat them, or breathe them in. Due to the wet conditions in North East Saskatchewan, I'm a little surprised it hasn't went further. Thankfully, they're starting to catch up on the vaccine now (mines here on Monday), so we should be able to contain it. And from now on, this little cowboys critters get Anthrax vaccinated each and every year.

So much for my plans to move to organic beef, at least for a few years anyway.

Rod

If I am not mistaken, organic allows vaccinations. I would have to check on that though.
 

Silver

Well-known member
DiamondSCattleCo said:
Anthrax is actually in the ground all over North America. It takes certain wet conditions to bring the spores to surface where the cattle can either eat them, or breathe them in. Due to the wet conditions in North East Saskatchewan, I'm a little surprised it hasn't went further.
Rod

Scary isn't it? From what I understand it can live in the ground for over a century just waiting for the right conditions for it to resurface.
 

Brad S

Well-known member
I think North Dakota had some anthrax recently also. I've never seen it, but if a fifty cent shot means I won't its decent insurance.

Do producers get paid for depopulating a herd in Canada, I think we do in the US.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Brad S said:
I think North Dakota had some anthrax recently also. I've never seen it, but if a fifty cent shot means I won't its decent insurance.

Do producers get paid for depopulating a herd in Canada, I think we do in the US.

North and South Dakota, Minnisota and I forget how many other states<quite a few> have anthrax right now. Its funny how Americans seem to only be aware of the bad stuff that happens in Canada.
 

fedup2

Well-known member
Roper writes: [Its funny how Americans seem to only be aware of the bad stuff that happens in Canada.]

C'mon roper, that is another pure bs statement! The anthrax situation in ND has been in the news somewhere almost everyday. Some of you are getting so punch drunk with the tough luck you have been having lately, that you swing back at everything that moves. Its not going to help to make whiney @ss statements like that.

What you should be discussing is the handling of these dead animals. You can be infected from them if not handled properly. (a man from ND was infected)

This from 2000 about the guy who was infected. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5032a1.htm

this from 05 about the # of cases.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-18-cattle-anthrax_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Have a nice day.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
US Coverup
GENEVA, N.Y. - The United States did not properly analyze two suspected cases of mad cow disease in 1997, years before it showed up in Canada and devastated this country's beef industry, a CBC News investigation suggests.

Dr. Masuo Doi, the U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian who initially investigated both 1997 cases, says he is haunted by fears that the right tests were not done and that his own department did not properly investigate whether the cow had BSE.
Doi is now retired and speaking for the first time about his concerns.

"I don't want to carry on off to my retirement," he told CBC's Investigative Unit. "I want to hand it over to someone to continue, to find out. I think it's very, very important ...

"How many did we miss?"
Doi's concerns are echoed by Dr. Karl Langheindrich, the chief scientist at a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab in Athens, Ga., that ran the early tests on one of the cows.

Documents obtained by CBC show that the samples tested by the department did not contain parts of the animal's brain critical for an accurate diagnosis.

Langheindrich told CBC that the department will never be able to say for sure what was wrong with the cow, though at the time it publicly ruled out bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

"Based on the clinical symptoms and the description given by the veterinarian, you can verify, yes, this animal had CNS, central nervous system disease, but you can't specify it in your findings further than that," he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is refusing to talk about the cases, saying the documents provided to CBC speak for themselves.

1997 video from New York shows stricken cow

The scientists' comments raise new questions about how the U.S. industry has been able to essentially escape BSE when Canada's much smaller industry, observing almost identical safety and testing practices, has had four cases in the past two years.

Part of the answer could be in a slaughterhouse in Oriskany Falls, N.Y., which eight years ago may have become the home of the first American case of mad cow.

Bobby Godfrey, who worked at the plant, remembers a cow that arrived one day in May 1997.

"I thought it was a mad dog, to tell you the truth," he told CBC. "Didn't know what the hell it was. Never seen a cow act like that in all the cows I saw go through there. There was definitely something wrong with it."

The suspect cow was recorded on USDA videotape, which has been obtained by CBC News. It shows the animal trembling, hunching its back and charging plant workers.

"Me and my vet, including our inspector, they thought [the cow] was quite different," Doi told CBC. "They thought it was the BSE."

Key areas of brain not tested: documents

Documents obtained by CBC News show that the U.S. government was preparing for the worst. Initial signs pointed to its first case of mad cow disease, which would have immediate impacts on U.S. beef exports to countries around the world.

But further tests on the animal came back negative, the USDA later reported.
The final conclusion from an independent university lab: The cow had a rare brain disorder never reported in that breed of cattle either before or since – not the dreaded bovine spongiform encephalopathy. CBC News has now learned that key areas of the brain where signs of BSE would be most noticeable were never tested. The most important samples somehow went missing.

That information was contained in a USDA lab report that was left out of the documents officially released by the department. It proves that the scientist in charge of the case knew his investigation was limited because of the missing brain tissue.

Second suspected case surfaces at same plant

With questions about the first cow still lingering, a second American cow showed up at the same plant three months later with suspicious symptoms. Videotape of that animal shows its head was bobbing and it was unable to rise to its feet, setting off warning bells for mad cow disease.

The second cow's brain was also sent for testing. Officials were later told verbally that the samples had tested negative for BSE.

Doi made repeated requests for documentary proof of the negative tests. To this day, he has seen nothing.

"How many are buried?" he wonders of other possible cases of BSE in the United States. "Can you really trust our inspection [system]?"

For weeks, the USDA told CBC that it had no records for the second cow suspected of having BSE in 1997. Then just a few days ago, it suddenly produced documents that it says proves that a cow was tested and that the tests were negative for mad cow disease.

But the documents also prove, once again, that there were problems with the testing. This time, so much brain tissue was missing that it compromised the examination.
The problems were so severe that one USDA scientist wrote that his own examination was of "questionable validity" because he couldn't tell what part of the cow's brain he was looking at. Felicia Nestor, a lawyer who represents U.S. government whistle-blowers, says she isn't surprised by what this CBC News investigation uncovered.

"There have been too many times where information or tissues or other evidence has just sort of disappeared, fallen through the cracks," said Nestor, who has been handling USDA-related cases for nearly 10 years.

"There are a lot of holes. There are a lot of holes."

Commons committee hears coverup allegations

The results of the CBC investigation were broadcast on the same day that a former U.S. agriculture inspector, during testimony at a House of Commons committee, accused his own government of covering up suspected cases of BSE.

On Tuesday, Lester Friedlander repeated a claim he has made before – that cases of BSE surfaced in the U.S. long before the disease showed up in Canada.

Friedlander, who was fired from his job as head of inspections at a meat-packing plant in Philadelphia in 1995 after criticizing what he called unsafe practices, says he is willing to take a lie detector test to prove he is telling the truth.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/04/12/usbse050412.html
 

fedup2

Well-known member
Interesting speculation Roper, but what does it have to do with this discussion on Anthrax? :???:

Anthrax is discussed everyday. Educating ranchers is the first step in controlling it. There is no dark mysterious cloud over this like the ones everybody sees with bse!
 

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