The goal is harmonization of the two countries’ approach to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) mitigation. Given the extent of beef, feed, and rendered products traded between the two nations, as well as the global view that Canada, the United States, and Mexico represent a single market in many respects, a single system for BSE control and prevention is the preferred solution to the on-going world beef trade crisis facing Canada and the United States.
The harmonization of the three countries’ BSE systems is critical to winning back the confidence of the Japanese and South Korean governments, and thence, most of the Asian beef export market. During recent federal court battles to reopen the Canadian/U.S. border to live animal trade, one argument made by R-CALF, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, was that the Canadian system was insufficient to detect infected animals or protect the U.S. herd from BSE infection. The Japanese government at one point said such name-calling did not bode well for reopening beef trade with either nation since Japan views North America as a single market.
The Canadian proposal is far more detailed and extensive than the U.S. version. A critical difference in the two approaches is that the U.S. proposal calls for the removal of the so-called “short list” of specified risk materials (SRMs), i.e., brains and spinal cords, from animals over 30 months of age while the Canadian proposal includes brains, spinal cords, dorsal root and trigeminal ganglia, the distal ileum, and other central nervous system tissues. Both proposals call for the elimination from the feed chain of all dead cattle and nonambulatory animals (deads/downers) no matter their age unless the brain and spinal cords have been removed. Both proposals allow beef tallow as long as it meets the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE, standard of 0.15 percent impurities.
The United States justified its short list SRM approach by explaining that removing brains and spinal cords from the suspect age group represents something over 90 percent risk removal when coupled with the existing mitigation steps in the current FDA ruminant feeding ban. The United States points to OIE concurrence with its approach.
Admittedly, the timing of the respective proposals may have dictated how extensive each approach turned out to be. When the Canadian proposal was made last year, that nation was under intense pressure to regain foreign beef markets as rapidly as possible, given the continued closure of the U.S. border to live animal trade. Some speculate the draconian approach adopted by the Canadians was designed to send the strongest possible signal to the world beef market that its system would be airtight and customers could return with confidence.
However, the U.S. situation was a bit different. Even though FDA signaled a much more extensive rulemaking approach – and one more closely aligned with the Canadians – in its advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in July 2004, the agency backed off as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s enhanced BSE surveillance program went over the 400,000-animal mark, detecting only one animal, and the department began testing 20,000 otherwise healthy animals. Further, renderer and feed company compliance with the existing feed rule has consistently exceeded 98 percent.
Some assumed the U.S. proposed rule would give the Canadian government reason to back away from its complex proposed rule and re-propose a rule more in line with the simpler approach taken in the United States. Others naively assumed Canada would simply fall in line with U.S. proposal.
U.S. industry likely underestimates the pressure by the Canadian government from domestic consumer and food safety organizations, which like U.S. groups, are pushing for a far more comprehensive BSE rulemaking, one that mimics just about all steps taken by the United Kingdom at the height of its BSE epidemic. To change direction – seemingly to placate the United States and the politics of trade – would bring the sitting minority government of Canada under unwanted political pressure.
In mid-November, however, it was unclear if Canada would follow the United States, or move to try and shift the U.S. position to one closer to the Canadian proposal. Several weeks after FDA’s proposal was released, neither Canadian nor U.S. industry had any indication Canada even contemplated a significant change in its proposal. In fact, conversations with Canadian government officials, as well as with highly placed members of Canadian industry, revealed the Canadian government had yet to hear anything from the United States that had convinced it to change its “analytical framework,” meaning the matrix used to calculate risk and benefit from its options on BSE mitigation.
It is known Canadian officials would like to make a decision by the end of calendar 2005 on whether to go with its original proposal or modify its approach, but it could be early January 2006 before a decision is made.
Feed Testing Under Fire
Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) continue to take shots at FDA and its handling of the BSE feed rule, this time releasing a letter from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, saying FDA is doing a poor job in its small “discrete” feed testing program. The program is designed to discover if feed companies are mixing prohibited ruminant rendered products into ruminant feeds. The letter was an addendum to a February 2005 GAO report requested by the two senators, which itself was a follow-up to a January 2002 GAO report on FDA’s handling of its feed rule.
Essentially, GAO says the feed testing takes too long, identifiable goals are missing from the program, follow-up inspection documentation is poor, and the agency has no way of knowing whether the testing program actually contributes to the success of its overall BSE prevention scheme. On the criticism that testing takes too long, GAO said about 50 percent of the samples took over 30 days to be tested, and 21 samples took over 100 days, the implication being prohibited material could have been mixed into feed and fed before FDA even had evidence of a problem.
FDA shot back that GAO – once again – was focusing on a very small part of a much larger effort, and that it is unreasonable to place hard and fast deadlines on testing procedures. GAO backed off just a bit, saying that rather than setting specific deadlines for testing, FDA should work to set minimum time frames for collection, testing, and reporting on feed sampling.
View from Washington - December 2005 Render