Meat of the Madder

By Patricia Dailey, Editor-in-Chief

A Black Angus cow born in 1995—most likely though not certainly in Canada—spent the next eight years doing what breeding stock is expected to do—giving birth to cattle. Just exactly how many calves this particular inky-black farm animal produced during her lifetime, where the progeny ended up and even exactly where she originally came from were not entirely clear as the story first unfolded, points that until recently should not have much mattered. This particular cow’s entire life was entirely predictable and unremarkable until January, when her plodding gait turned wobbly. Suspected of having pneumonia, the animal was slaughtered.

Test results released last month indicated something more serious. One of roughly 9.5 million Canadian cattle, this animal was diagnosed post-mortem with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), immediately throwing the $30 billion Canadian cattle industry into a crippling frenzy of chaos and fear. It was the first reported case of BSE—or mad-cow disease—on North American soil in more than a decade, and although it happened to play out in Canada, the effects quickly plowed across the border to the United States, where roughly 40% of Canadian-bred beef ends up.

The brain-wasting illness, with an incubation period of two to eight years, can be transmitted to humans through the consumption of infected beef; the human variant is known as Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.

Two years ago, BSE caught the attention of the U.S. foodservice industry when the agricultural nightmare was playing out some 3,500 miles away in the United Kingdom. The fact that no cases had been identified on this side of the Atlantic meant that, despite a lot of consumer attention and media discussion, real impact on the U.S. foodservice industry was minimal.

This time, though, a vastly different outcome is virtually a given. On word of the single case (at press time), stock prices of burger chains and meat companies alike took hits, even as each constituency emphasized the system of checks in place to assure the safety of its products. The United States immediately halted imports of Canadian beef and other countries followed suit. Consumer groups quickly demanded meat-inspection reforms while Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to keep its ban on Canadian beef in place until the Canadian food-safety system can prove that it has fully eradicated BSE.

All of this is well and good. Even an isolated case of mad cow demands the type of close scrutiny and rigorous protection against large-scale problems that could rip to the core of the foodservice industry. But panic should not be the outcome. Science and the media work at different paces, which pits the methodic, sometimes plodding study of test results against daily deadlines.

It is difficult, at this point, to get a full, clear picture of exactly how the Canadian cow became infected. But the swift response by Canadian officials to isolate herds and find the cause is a strong indication that the story may play out bigger in the press than it does in the pasture.