Questions and Answers About BSE (Mad Cow Disease)
1. What is the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food doing to protect Utah's beef supply?
Utah does not have BSE and never has. The animal in question never entered the food system. The animal was a “downer” that could not walk and was delivered to a rendering plant for animals unfit for human consumption. The government banned downer cows from the food supply just days after the 2003 case. The ban on downer cows is one of many safeguards aimed at keeping the disease from getting into the food or feed supply.
Every beef or dairy cow that is slaughtered for human consumption or other reasons in Utah is inspected by a veterinarian for a variety of animal diseases...including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow disease. Diseased animals are removed from the system and tested. All slaughtered cows have their brain and spinal material removed prior to processing. That material is sent to rendering where it is not fed back to humans or cows. This is an important food safety step because the only way cows and humans can contract BSE is by eating material contaminated with central nervous system matter which contains infective prions.
Approximately 388,000 tests on slaughtered cows have been conducted by USDA. Utah has tested more than 4,000 cows as part of this safety system. Utah has the highest meat inspection rating (Category One) from the USDA. Few states earn a Category One rating.
2. If BSE is found only in the brain and spinal cord does that mean you need to eat the brain or spinal cord to become sick, or does the BSE leak into other parts of the cow during the butchering and packing process?
The infected material...brain, spinal cord, distal ileum, etc. is removed prior to processing for human consumption. The remaining muscle meat is considered to pose an extremely low health risk to humans since it is highly unlikely to contain any infected matter. In order for a human, or cow, to contract BSE, the person's genetic makeup must, unfortunately, be pre-configured to "catch" the infected prion found in the contaminated material. And a certain dose of the prion must be administered. Therefore a person must first have the genetic make up and consume brain or central nervous system matter to have a chance of becoming sick. The USDA and Utah Dept. of Agriculture and Food spend billions of dollars each year to make sure that contaminated matter does not reach consumers.
3. How long is the incubation period for BSE?
From three to six years.
4. How is the disease transmitted from cow to cow?
The disease is NOT transmitted from cow to cow. One cow cannot pass it along to another. It does not transmit like a contagious disease. It is not a bacteria, nor virus. A cow must consume feed that contains brain, central nervous system material. It has been illegal to feed "ruminant material to ruminant" since Aug. of 1997. The cow found in Washington was born in April of 1997, four months prior to the feed ban, in Canada.
5. What is the potential impact to the beef market and what does it mean to those here in Utah who raise beef?
The financial impact is significant in the USA. Utah's financial impact could be in the 10's of millions of dollars or higher. One-third of the state's $1.2 billion dollar annual agriculture economy comes from cattle and calves.
6. Can we test for BSE without killing the cow, which cows are tested and when is testing conducted?
Accurate testing requires the taking of brain tissue samples, which requires that the animal be sacrificed. There is no live animal test for BSE. Cows which exhibit neurological symptoms, such as non-ambulatory, ataxic, or blind animals are tested at slaughter. Presenting those animals for inspection at slaughter allows us to perform surveillance and inspection. Banning them from slaughter would prevent us from having that opportunity.
7. If I were going to buy calves at auction how can I tell if they are disease free?
The U.S. enjoys the safest food supply in the world because of the animal and plant health inspection system that is in place. The discovery of this infected cow that came from outside our borders is an indication that our system is working. All cattle that are offered for sale at an approved auction market are inspected by the attending veterinarian and tested for certain diseases. All animals that travel across state lines are required to have a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection. All cattle entering the state of Utah are required to have a prior Entry Permit issued by the Department of Agriculture. In certain cases they are required to be tested for diseases such as brucellosis and TB. There is no live animal test for BSE. The early symptoms of BSE can be very subtle. That is why we have a system of surveillance at slaughter. This cow was detected by those routine surveillance procedures, even though she was not showing advanced symptoms.
8. What safe guards are in place for small packing plants or custom kill plants and small town butcher shops? Is beef from these small plants tested?
All beef offered for sale in Utah is inspected by State or federal meat inspectors. The only meat that is not inspected is "custom" slaughtered animals that are marked not for resale. Custom animals are animals that are raised by the owners and slaughtered for their own consumption. The owners of those animals are well aware of what they have been fed. Those owners are protected, since the only way animals are known to contract BSE is from eating BSE contaminated feed. Feeding animal protein to ruminants has been banned in this country and Canada since 1997. The Utah Department of Agriculture performs routine inspections of feed manufacturers in the state to ensure compliance.