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Canadians Misled About
Mad Cow Disease
In the early moments following the announcement that Canada had its first case of Mad Cow disease, the media rightly asked why it took almost 4 months before the suspect cow was diagnosed.
Federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief and Alberta Agriculture Minister Shirley McLellan, speaking at a joint Press Conference, maintained the suspect cow "wasn't a priority". According to McLellan, the cow had "pneumonia and it was thin," and it "was not a BSE suspect. It did not have indications for our inspector".
Well it turns out that wasn't true. Canada's first Mad Cow was a "downer" cow -- it couldn't stand, let alone walk. Even the owner thought it was Mad Cow disease.
The suspect downer cow should have been tested for Mad Cow disease immediately and should never have entered the animal feed chain. Losing the ability to walk is a symptom of cattle with BSE. Even Alberta's chief Veterinarian, Gerald Ollis, later admitted the fact, after he initially told the Canadian Media: "There was no indication the animal had BSE".
Lyle Vanclief, misled Canadians yet again when he told the media: "The animal did not go into the food or feed chain". The reality is the "Mad Cow" was sent to a rendering plant where it entered the animal feed chain, ignoring a 1996 World Health Organization recommendation against such dangerous practices.
Canadians shouldn't be surprised. Vanclief has been misleading Canadian about Mad Cow disease since back in 2001 when he told the Canadian Media: "Never ... Canada has not imported meat and bone meal from the European Union". Why then does Statistics Canada documentation show that between 1990-2000 Canada imported millions of kilograms of potentially contaminated blood meal, meat scraps and waste meat from the United Kingdom and European countries with BSE in their herds. Shockingly, over 2.8 million kilograms of this potentially contaminated material was imported after 1996 - after it was established that humans could get Mad Cow disease from eating infected meat.
Vanclief also repeatedly claims that Canada has banned the cannibalistic ruminant-to-ruminant feeding practices which spread Mad Cow disease. This too is patently false. Under Canadian law it is still legal for cattle to be fed a diet derived from mammal "blood, gelatin, rendered animal fat or their products." In other words, cattle materials like blood and fat are still making their way into cattle feed. (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Regulations: Food for Ruminants, Livestock and Poultry [Part XIV], "Prohibited Materials")
It is also still legal for pigs and chickens, fed on rendered cattle materials, to be rendered and fed back to cattle. These dangerous feeding practices must banned immediately. Shortly after the Mad Cow announcement, three BC Farms were quarantined after it was discovered that cattle might have eaten chicken feed made from the rendered carcass of the "Mad" cow. For a regulatory system that Vanclief claims is the "best in the world", it is curious how no one in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or Health Canada ever concluded that occasionally feed mix-ups happen (like in BC), or that in the real world cattle sometimes eat other animals feed.
These avoidable risks should never have been taken. Canada should have heeded the WHO years ago and totally banned the recycling of animal protein in feed. Cattle are herbivores and should not eat other animals. According to William Leiss, President of the prestigious Royal Society of Canada, the federal government should implement a full ban on such feeding practices. "Stop recycling animal protein," said Mr. Leiss. "All of it. Period. That's the answer, because of what we know." (The Dangers of Recycling Animal Protein, Ottawa Citizen/June 6, 2001).
Canadians need government regulators who will -- to quote Justice Horace Krever -- regulate in the interest of the public, not in the interest of the regulated. This is paramount. Unfortunately, Canada no longer has such a system.