The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dec. 23 announcement that a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found in Washington State was a holiday surprise no one in agriculture wanted to get. Although investigators reported no connection between the BSE case and Minnesota, our farmers suffered the financial impact of the announcement through a sharp drop in cattle prices and bans against U.S. beef shipments in major export markets such as Japan, Mexico and South Korea. It is still unclear how long those bans will be in place. To their credit, federal officials responded to the situation swiftly and professionally. They immediately launched an in-depth investigation with support from state counterparts and the livestock industry. The investigations will go on for some time, but the results to-date have been reassuring. Although even one case of BSE is troubling, there is little chance we will see a large-scale BSE crisis in America. A recent study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found the risk of a widespread BSE outbreak in the U.S. is low thanks to measures implemented since the disease was first reported in Great Britain in the 1980s. Minnesota has been one of the most aggressive states with regard to BSE prevention. Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) feed inspectors were among the first in the nation to visit feed mills to ensure they complied with the ban on including ruminant protein in cattle feed. Last summer, the MDA and the University of Minnesota co-sponsored a BSE workshop to educate agriculture professionals from around the state. The state also submitted 2,779 cattle samples for BSE testing in 2003 – more than 10 percent of the national total. These samples came from the cows most likely to harbor BSE, and to-date none have come back positive. The long-term impact of the BSE case on beef producers in Minnesota and other states remains to be seen. It will depend not only on the outcome of the USDA investigation and U.S. consumers’ reaction, but also on how quickly government officials in key export markets like Japan can be reassured of the safety of U.S. beef. Although only a fraction of U.S. beef is exported, even that small amount can have a significant impact on prices if foreign demand remains low. International trade officials will no doubt take some comfort from the USDA’s announcement that the BSE-positive cow came from Canada. However, given the close ties between the American and Canadian cattle industries, experts say there is still a risk that other cows born prior to the ruminant feed ban may test positive for BSE. If that happens, the economic outlook for America’s beef sector may be darker. Back home, the question on people’s minds is whether it is still safe to eat U.S. beef. I believe it is. Evidence suggests the risk of a person contracting the human version of BSE – called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) – by eating U.S. beef is exceedingly small. The malformed protein believed to cause BSE and vCJD is not known to occur in muscle meat, and the ruminant feed ban implemented in 1997 will prevent a large-scale BSE outbreak such as the one that struck Great Britain in the 1990s. To help citizens put the risk in perspective, it is helpful to remember that, even though millions of British citizens were exposed to BSE-contaminated beef in the 1990s, fewer than 150 have contract vCJD. Those long odds are no comfort to those Europeans who did contract the illness but, by comparison, everyday health problems such as pneumonia and influenza are much more significant threats to the population as a whole. For the latest information on the BSE investigation and the international beef trade, visit the USDA Web site at www.usda gov or the MDA Web site at www.mda.state.mn.us.
