Little Impact From ‘Mad Cow’ Scare Anticipated in California
California’s huge beef industry--the state’s third-largest agricultural sector--is unlikely to benefit any time soon from the scare over “mad cow disease” in Britain. And American consumers don’t appear to be worried about the malady.
U.S. fast-food chains, grocers and cattle ranchers say customers are confident in their beef and are aware that the cattle disease--recently linked to a fatal illness in humans--is isolated to England.
The fact that the United States has not imported British beef since 1985 nor imported British cattle since 1989 has added a measure of safety in the minds of consumers, they said.
“I haven’t seen any evidence that consumers have been spooked by this whole thing,” said Kevin Bost, market analyst for Topco Associates, a Skokie, Ill., buying agent that supplies meat to supermarkets across the United States.
British cattle and beef products have been shunned worldwide since government officials in London announced last week that scientists had found a possible link between cattle killer bovine spongiform encephalopathy and the fatal human disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob. Wary consumers elsewhere in Western Europe had begun to shift to other meats.
But the United States does not sell much beef to Europe because of trade barriers, which the European Union instituted in 1988--citing worries about the use of hormones to stimulate growth. The EU is reviewing those barriers in light of a recent study concluding that proper use of such hormones does not create a health hazard.
The U.S. beef industry might benefit from the “mad cow” furor if British producers were required to kill cattle suspected of carrying the disease and restock from areas with no infestation, said Bruce Berven, executive director of the California Beef Council.
“We would be a very likely market for them,” Berven said.
Concerns within the U.S. meat industry that widespread publicity about the deadly ailments also would scare American consumers appear to be unfounded for now.
Representatives of the Wendy’s and McDonald’s fast-food chains said they have not seen any effect in the United States. Cattle ranchers, packing houses and retailers say they’ve fielded only a few questions about the disease.
“There really hasn’t been any measurable impact,” said Jeff Walser with WEFA Group in Eddystone, Pa., who tracks retail beef and pork markets.
Rick McCarty of the Englewood, Colo.-based National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. said his organization isn’t seeing “any consumer reaction, nor do we see a reaction in the cattle market or from producers.”
“Any time you have a tremendous amount of media coverage on some issue related to food, there is always going to be a period where there is a ripple of nervousness,” McCarty said. “I think it’s always the case that people go, ‘Ooh, that’s kind of scary,’ then good sense takes over and they say, ‘Well, not really.’ ”
“Mad cow disease,” which first appeared in Britain’s herds about 10 years ago, is an extremely rare degenerative disease that affects the brains and central nervous systems of cattle. Scientists believe cattle got the disease by eating feed that contained sheep tissue added as a protein supplement. Sheep are susceptible to a similar brain disease called scrapie.
The U.S. livestock industry voluntarily stopped using cattle feed made from sheep several years ago, although sheep protein is used in some items, such as pet food. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a ban on that feed now. Beef parts also are used in dozens of other American products, from cosmetics to candy to gelatins to drugs for diabetes, hay fever and arthritis. But scientists say the disease scare should affect none of them.
“The public health risk is about as close to zero as you can get,” said Russell Cross, director of the Institute of Food Science and Engineering at Texas A&M; University.
Analysts also cautioned that over the long run, the publicity about the beef-related disease could eventually have a cumulative effect on consumer beef-buying habits.
Beef has struggled with its health image since 1993, when a major outbreak of E. coli bacteria in Washington, Idaho, California and Nevada killed four young children and sickened 500 people overall. The E. coli outbreak was tied to improperly cooked hamburger meat.
* SUPPORT FOR BRITAIN
Response of European nations. A6
* WHEAT DISEASE
Quarantine imposed in Southland. D2
