Suspect Cow Won’t Affect Imports, U.S. Says

Expressing confidence in the safety of Canadian beef, the Bush administration said Thursday that it would stand by its decision to resume Canadian cattle imports beginning in March despite a possible new case of mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department said that even if the Canadian cow was confirmed to have the disease, the agency believed that public health measures on both sides of the border were sufficient to protect U.S. livestock and consumers.

“Because of the mitigation measures that Canada has in place, we continue to believe the risk is minimal,” said Ron DeHaven, administrator of the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

On Thursday, a day after the United States announced that, with some restrictions, it would reopen its borders to Canadian live cattle, the Canadian government announced that it might have another case of mad cow disease. It said preliminary screening of a “downer” cow -- one unable to walk -- showed multiple positive results for the disease. Definitive tests have yet to be completed, Canadian officials said.

The decision to allow Canadian cows into the United States in light of the latest potential case brought sharp responses from Democratic lawmakers.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) called the decision outrageous and accused the Agriculture Department leadership of caring “more about the interests of mega-feedlots and processors than the interests of farmers, ranchers and consumers.”

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) said he wanted to know whether the department had known that Canadian officials were investigating a suspected case of the disease when they decided to declare Canadian beef a minimal risk.

The U.S. halted imports of Canadian beef and cattle 19 months ago after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in Alberta. Concerns persisted after a Canadian-born cow living in Washington state was found in December 2003 to have the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. The disease attacks an animal’s nervous system, and food contaminated with BSE can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, an illness that is usually fatal.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency released few details about the latest cow except to say that it was a 10-year-old dairy cow in northern Alberta and that no parts of the animal had entered the human food or animal feed system.

DeHaven said that in deciding to resume imports, the Agriculture Department had considered the possibility of new cases of mad cow disease being found in Canada.