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Let Canuck Consumers Eat It?!???

A

Anonymous

Guest
Cattle ate traces of animal remains



Dave Rogers, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen

The Gazette

Published: Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Canada



OTTAWA -The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Monday that 10,000 cattle in Ontario and Quebec have consumed feed containing traces of animal byproducts, but the risk of exposing humans to mad cow disease is negligible.


The feed used on 113 farms became contaminated recently when a rail car used to ship meat and bone meal for hog and poultry feed was later employed to transport blood meal that was added to cattle feed.



The beef will be sold to Canadians, but the food inspection agency has decided to track the cattle movements so they cannot be exported. Darcy Unseth, a veterinarian with the agency, said Russia and Lebanon refuse to accept meat that comes from cattle exposed to meat and bone meal.



Unseth said 33 sheep and five goats that ate the feed will be placed under similar transport controls. The food inspection agency refused to identify the farms that used the feed for privacy reasons.



Agribrands Canada spokesman Rob Meijer said the company voluntarily recalled the feed produced at its plants at Addison near Brockville in eastern Ontario and Drummondville, Que., east of Montreal.



Meijer said the company disposed of the feed at landfill sites and replaced it with cattle feed that did not contain meat and bone meal.



''Feed ingredients come in bulk rail car shipments and there is a cleanout procedure when you are unloading and loading,'' Meijer said. ''Our suppliers are supposed to bang on the cars with rubber mallets to shake loose any material that may be caught in corners and then wash the hopper cars.



''Unfortunately in this case the cleaning may not have been done thoroughly enough. Out of respect for domestic and international sensitivity on this issue, we wanted to make sure that there was no potential for human or animal concerns. We produced the feed and we take 100-per-cent responsibility for this issue.''



Unseth said the cattle ate the feed for up to two weeks but there is no evidence that the feed is a threat human health.



Canada has a partial ban on adding animal byproducts to cattle feed. In 1997, the government banned the feeding of cattle remains back to cattle and other ruminants, but it still allows cattle remains to be used in feed for chickens, hogs and pets.



The food agency is investigating because the production of cattle feed that includes meat, bones and some other byproducts violates government feed regulations and carries a maximum possible penalty of a $250,000 fine and two years in prison.



There is concern and scientific evidence that cross-contamination of animal feed streams can contribute to the spread of the infectious and persistent prions that cause brain-wasting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.



James Atkinson, a University of Guelph animal nutritionist, said meat and bone meal is added to pig and poultry feed as a source of calcium, phosphorus and protein.



Ottawa Citizen



Source: CanWest News Service

canada.com
 

TimH

Well-known member
If I was Ronald S. Arnold (AKA bse-tester), I would be on this like ugly on an ape!!(or Oprah on a ham)
What an opportunity for him to prove his claims about the sensitivity of his test kit. He could test these 10,000 animals that have consumed potentially contaminated feed. Any positives could be destroyed and or tested using approved tests, and the negatives could be given a clean bill of health and or re-tested at slaughter,again, using "approved" tests.
Don't let this one slip by Ron!!!!
:D
 

TimH

Well-known member
reader (the Second) said:
Clever but of course there is an incubation period and no one claimed to be able to detect prions immediately after infection. That may come someday, like pregnancy tests.

I don't know about that R2, I could be wrong, but I believe Ron(bse-tester) has made claims(on this very site) that his test will detect PrPSC in urine VERY shortly after consumption. Maybe even in a matter of hours?, if memory serves.
Perhaps Mr.Arnold would be kind enough to clarify this.
:)
 

Tam

Well-known member
reader (the Second) said:
There are so many things disturbing about this article I don't know where to begin -

1 - Why does Canada follow the US and still feed ground up bovine to non-ruminants? That's the basic cause behind these types of slip-ups.

2 - Shaking the material free with a good bang and washing it out with a hose in no way gets rid of contaminated material as we know that it takes extreme heat to sterilize surfaces contaminated with prions. There should be SEPARATE everything - transport systems and manufacturing systems if Canada and the US insist upon still feeding ground up cow to other animals.

3 - Cattle ate this potentially contaminated feed for 2 weeks. It is not fit to export these cattle to Canada's partners. But they are fit for Canadians to consume without these consumers having a choice in the matter or being informed.

I think I had other alarms go off reading the article but this is why Mike Hansen and others are calling for a closing of all the feed loopholes in the U.S. Considering that Canada has had a number of cases of BSE, it is inconceivable that they have not tightened these loopholes.

And I'm not slamming Canada, just pointing out what having feed loopholes leads to regardless of whether it's Canada, the U.S. or some other country. The UK learned their lesson and finally closed all the loopholes several years after their preliminary regulations were put in place to prevent the spread of BSE. Why haven't we learned from them?

CANADA STRENGTHENS FEED CONTROLS
OTTAWA, June 26, 2006 - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is banning cattle tissues capable of transmitting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) from all animal feeds, pet foods and fertilizers. The enhancement will significantly accelerate Canada’s progress toward eradicating the disease from the national cattle herd by preventing more than 99% of any potential BSE infectivity from entering the Canadian feed system.

The banned tissues, which are collectively known as specified risk material (SRM), have been shown in infected cattle to contain concentrated levels of the BSE agent. Canada has already applied identical protection to the human food system, where SRM are removed from all cattle slaughtered for human consumption. This measure is internationally recognized as the most effective way to protect the safety of food from BSE.

“This ban tightens already strong, internationally recognized feed controls and shortens the path we must follow to move beyond BSE,” said the Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board. “Preventing all these materials from entering the animal feed chain minimizes risks and demonstrates the commitment of Canada’s new government to take necessary, science-based actions to address BSE.”
Just thought you would like to know Reader that Canada has done something that the US hasn't done yet, AGAIN. We haven't fed chicken crap for years and now we did ban it from all animal feed in June. The government gave the industry a year to comply which I don't think they should have but new rules do need time to adjust to.
 

Bill

Well-known member
The problem is that it is 3 years since the OIE completed its investigation and told Canada and the us of A to eliminate ruminant by-products from the feed supply. CCA dragged its feet on it because it would cost the industry too much and we couldn't posssibly compete with American producers who won't change. What is this latest little disaster going to cost us as Rule 2 sits waiting for approval (or not)? Another crucial stage for border reopening and another damn Canadian screw-up.

The clowns at CFIA have told our most important customer, Canadian consumers, that we are going to feed them potentially contaminated beef because we screwed up again! Don't worry its absolutely safe even though we can't sell it to anyone else! :roll: Combine this with the hospital basically shutting down in London Ont. due to a possible CJD case and we are looking at a potential PR nightmare. We all know what would happen if this was happening in the Excited States of America and we would now be watching Peta and friends having a grand old time rubbing R-Calf's nose in some of their earlier statements.

The old saying is that if you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is QUIT DIGGING and for many producers it's long past time for Canada to grab back at least a portion of our beef industry and implement some made in Canada solutions for this mess.
 

don

Well-known member
a hospital pathologist said it's almost certainly classical cjd not vcjd but the story still refers to mad cow. i guess they like to sell newspapers. if we want to sell cattle we had better get our act together and give consumers all the assurance of safety we can. if we watch our markets erode because we aren't going the full distance to show consumers we're responsible for our product there are going to be some widespread repercussions and a lot of broke ranchers.
 

rkaiser

Well-known member
R2 writes -
I have found over and over that people do not take the time and listen to the similarities between BSE, vCJD, and CJD. That definitely includes
Reader the second.

If she did she would notice that all have environmental beginnings that could be delt with if more folks like her were to focus less energy on topics already hashed over til hell won't have em.

Couldn't let the opportunity pass me by R2. If you would like some reading on how a few of us canuckleheads have been battling for BSE testing these days - take a leap over to
http://www.agri-ville.com/cgi-bin/forums/viewThread.cgi?1165074744
 

rkaiser

Well-known member
Geez R2 - I snuck the word "similarities" in - that's why I made it bold.

I was trying to say that there are similarities, but not the type to fear from eating beef, or deer, or even gophers. We should be paying more attention to the environmental effects that are causing these TSE's rather than even paying heed to any media hounds pouncing on the lost trails of species jumping theorists.
 
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