U.S. Bans Live Hog and Meat Imports From Europe

U.S. regulators moved quickly Tuesday to ban imports of live hogs and all uncooked animal products from the European Union, temporarily shutting down more than $300 million in annual trade, after France reported Europe’s first recent case of foot-and-mouth disease outside of Britain.

Although foot-and-mouth does not pose a health risk to humans, it is deadly to cattle, sheep and hogs. It has no cure and travels so rapidly that entire herds and flocks must be destroyed to prevent its spread.

The economic effect of the ban in the U.S. is not expected to be great; the EU accounted for just $1.4 billion of the United States’s $8.3 billion in animals and animal products imports in 2000. But the spread of the disease to continental Europe and the swift response by the U.S. highlighted the growing concern about the disease’s effect on the world’s agriculture economy.

More than 150,000 animals have been slaughtered in Europe since the disease was first diagnosed in Britain three weeks ago. New cases also were confirmed Tuesday in Argentina, Colombia and Mongolia.

North America, Central America, Australia and Chile are among the areas considered free of the disease.

“We have not had a case of foot-and-mouth here in more than 70 years, and we want to keep it that way,” said Kevin Herglotz, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman. ‘This animal disease could cost our [pork and beef] industry billions of dollars should it come into the U.S.”

Travelers from the European Union will be subject to more scrutiny at U.S. ports of entry, including having their shoes or clothes disinfected. More inspectors have been dispatched to U.S. airports and ports, and signs and public service announcements have been created to inform the public about the disease.

Foot-and-mouth is wreaking financial havoc on British farmers, who are already struggling to recover from a devastating “mad-cow” epidemic. But the biggest effect of this U.S. ban will be on pork producers in Denmark--the U.S.’ second-largest source of pork imports behind Canada--and the Netherlands.

Of the $234.8 million in pork and pork products such as ham and ribs shipped to the U.S. from Europe in 1999, $167.3 million was from Denmark, according to the National Pork Producers Council. Most of those products will be banned. Cooked products such as Danish hams will be allowed in because the heat of cooking kills the virus.

European cattle and beef products were banned in the U.S. five years ago because of mad-cow concerns.

On Feb. 21, two days after the foot-and-mouth diagnosis in Britain, the USDA extended that ban to include all animals and meat from Britain and Ireland, including pigs and sheep.

Foot-and-mouth disease is deadly to cloven-footed animals. And it’s highly contagious. The virus can be spread by contaminated hay, water and manure; carried on clothing, shoes and car tires; and disseminated for miles by the wind, said Bennie Osburn, dean of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. It’s hardy, able to persist in contaminated material or the environment for up to a month.

“It’s ability to cause disease has just gotten greater,” Osburn said, because it has spread across Asia and Europe, raising the risk for farmers across the globe and here in the States. “And with the movement of animals, they have no idea how widely distributed [the disease] is.”

USDA recently sent a team of 40 federal officials and university scientists to Europe to monitor the disease and assist in efforts to contain it.

French officials confirmed Tuesday that they had found the disease in a herd of 114 cattle on a farm in the Mayenne region, near another farm that had imported sheep from Britain last month.

The 114 animals were destroyed and their carcasses incinerated Tuesday. It was the first case of the disease to hit the Continent, and agriculture officials there think the problem may be much more widespread. “I fear that there are other cases, and at the same time I’m doing everything to limit [the disease’s spread] as much as possible,” said French Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany on French radio.

Italy’s health ministry said Tuesday that it was slaughtering a herd of sheep from France because the animals showed possible symptoms of the disease, just days after it ordered a ban on livestock from affected areas.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) last week urged the Agriculture Department to block imports of livestock from anywhere in the world, including Canada, until the department assessed the adequacy of its controls for foot-and-mouth disease, a move that many saw as economic protectionism.

Indeed, this ban will accomplish what U.S. pork producers have been trying to do for years: block all pork imports from the European Union. But instead of blocking imports by a series of tariffs to retaliate for their refusal to accept U.S. cattle raised with hormones, it will block the products outright.

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Spreading Effect

The foot-and-mouth virus has spread like wild-fire in Britain since it emerged there last month. On Tuesday, France reported the first case of foot-and-mouth disease in mainland Europe.

* Britain: More than 116,000 animals slaughtered

* Spain: More than 500 pigs imported from Britain slaughtered

* France: First case confirmed Tuesday

* Italy: Suspected case in Abruzzi region

* Netherlands: About 4,300 animals at farms doing business with Britain slaughtered

* Germany: All sheep and goats imported from Britain slaughtered

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Sources: BBC, Associated Press

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Times researcher Nona Yates contributed to this report. Times wire services were used in compiling this report.