U.S. tries to reassure consumers
| • | Island supermarkets say their meat is safe |
| • | Recalled beef's trip to Islands complex |
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder News Service
WASHINGTON — In an effort to boost confidence in a meat safety system now being shunned by much of the world, U.S. agriculture officials said yesterday that the Holstein with mad cow disease was likely infected in Canada before tough measures were imposed to prevent the spread of the bovine illness.
Officials said the cow probably contracted the disease from eating feed that was later banned in 1997 when the Holstein was 4 months old. So, they say, it is unlikely that another case will be found in the United States.
Those assurances didn't work for Japan, the nation's biggest overseas beef customer. Yesterday, Japan refused to lift its ban. Twenty-nine other countries have banned importation of U.S. beef.
Elected officials are calling for more stringent action. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, revived an 11-year unsuccessful effort to keep sick and injured cattle out of the nation's food supply. There are about 195,000 such animals in the United States each year, a spokesman for the USDA estimated yesterday.
USDA chief veterinarian Ron DeHaven yesterday said the Mabton, Wash., farm owner, who unknowingly bought what was probably an infected Holstein in October 2001, has paperwork to show that the cow was born in April 1997, and was imported with 81 other cows from Canada. This means the cow could have been infected before the August 1997 feed ban.
DeHaven said there are few animals still alive from the period before the feed ban went into effect. "And so, as time goes by, the risk of more animals becoming affected decreases," he said.
Still, top experts think the United States will have a hard time persuading the rest of the world to eat American beef. Food safety professor Dean Cliver of the University of California-Davis estimates that it will take at least a year and probably six years before all U.S. beef embargoes are lifted.
