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NCBA wants "provisionally free" designation from OIE
by Pete Hisey on 3/21/05 for Meatingplace.com
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to push the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to reclassify the United States as "provisionally free" of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
In the letter, addressed to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, NCBA notes "we meet all of the criteria established by the OIE for such a designation." The association says that the closure of export markets has cost the beef industry about $175 per animal in added value and a total of $4.5 billion in the nearly 15 months since the discovery of a diseased animal in Washington state. That animal, however, had been born in Canada, and probably was first infected there.
"As our expanded BSE surveillance program approaches the target of 268,500 cattle, it illustrates even more profoundly why one imported cow with BSE should not have affected our BSE status or our international trade status," the letter reads, in part. "At this level of testing, the prevalence of BSE in the United States, if present at all, must be less than one in 10 million cattle over 24 months, with a confidence level of 99 percent."
NCBA wants "provisionally free" designation from OIE
by Pete Hisey on 3/21/05 for Meatingplace.com
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to push the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to reclassify the United States as "provisionally free" of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
In the letter, addressed to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, NCBA notes "we meet all of the criteria established by the OIE for such a designation." The association says that the closure of export markets has cost the beef industry about $175 per animal in added value and a total of $4.5 billion in the nearly 15 months since the discovery of a diseased animal in Washington state. That animal, however, had been born in Canada, and probably was first infected there.
"As our expanded BSE surveillance program approaches the target of 268,500 cattle, it illustrates even more profoundly why one imported cow with BSE should not have affected our BSE status or our international trade status," the letter reads, in part. "At this level of testing, the prevalence of BSE in the United States, if present at all, must be less than one in 10 million cattle over 24 months, with a confidence level of 99 percent."