Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Mad cow disease

Candidates do no favors by promoting far-fetched fears

Grasping for an issue that promises some traction with American voters, several Democratic candidates say they plan to make beef safety a major issue as they campaign this week in Iowa -- the nation's eighth-largest cattle-producing state and home of the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating caucuses, scheduled for Jan. 19.

The general Democratic claim (Sen. Joe Lieberman, to his credit, made no pretense of becoming an instant cattle expert) seems to be that the case of mad cow disease found in a Washington state Holstein this month could have been discovered earlier if the Bush administration had been more vigilant.

Some of the meat from that animal -- since recalled -- may have reached Nevada.

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean said in Ames, Iowa, Sunday that the incident "raises serious concerns about the ability of this administration to protect the safety of our nation's food supply and the health of our rural economies that depend on agriculture exports."

Some forthright debate about whether to ban the slaughter of cattle too sick to walk is past due. But what's needed now, surely, is some sober evaluation of what that would do to beef prices, as well as the actual risks to consumers.

The irony of candidates expressing concern about the economic health of our agricultural exports -- while cynically fueling an anti-beef panic which may not be justified by the facts -- is palpable.

Yes, this is a serious disease. Mad cow disease, known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is of concern because humans who eat brain or spinal matter from an infected cow can develop a brain-wasting illness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. During a mad cow outbreak in the 1980s, 143 people died in Britain.

But are the candidates bothering to point out that the use of brain and spinal cord tissue in cattle feed -- the primary means by which the ailment is transmitted -- has been banned in the United States and Canada since 1997?

The cow in question was born in April 1997 -- four months before that ban went into effect, the Agriculture Department announced Monday.

And the prion that causes mad cow disease is not found in muscle tissue -- the source of roasts, steaks and other beef cuts. Studies have shown the prion is found only in the central nervous system tissue -- the brain and spinal cord -- which are generally not eaten in North America.

"The recalled meat represents essentially zero risk to consumers," says Dr. Kenneth Petersen, a USDA veterinarian.

In fact, the greatest danger to America's meat industry right now may lie in the tendency of politicians desperate for a campaign issue to play on irrational fears, rather than using their bully pulpits to re-introduce some sensible perspective to this debate.

As America's meat producers brace to see how an irrational panic over the disease may affect beef prices, what's needed now are facts, and some sober discussion of costs and real -- in this case, minimal -- risks. If the politicians can't be counted on to inject that level of common sense back into this debate ... we must do so ourselves.