January 8, 2004 Calgary Sun (Alberta, Canada) by Licia Corbella

Yummy, huh? So much for a ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban.

There is, as I'm sure you've all noticed, much understandable gnashing of teeth over the confirmation Tuesday an American cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, was born in Alberta. It is the second such diseased animal linked to Alberta ranches in the past eight months and threatens to further damage our already devastated beef industry.

I hate to start with the "if onlys" but really, this whole sorry mess would have been completely unnecessary if only we had just been quicker to follow in Britain's footsteps, where the dreaded disease originated.

In July 1988, Britain banned the practice of turning cows into cannibals by imposing a ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban, which means that all animals with four stomachs, such as sheep, cows and elk -- herbivores all -- weren't allowed to eat each other any more. Hallelujah!

Canada and the U.S. waited another nine long years until 1997 to follow suit. And guess what? That Alberta-born cow in the U.S. causing this latest crisis was born in 1996, shortly before the ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban was implemented.

If only the feed ban had been implemented in 1988 or 1989, or even 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95 or 96, it's very likely that that cow would not have contracted mad cow disease. As such, it's also highly likely live Canadian cattle would be moving across the U.S. border as we speak.

But now we have another potential "if only" that hopefully our officials will deal with, and I'm not talking about "shoot shovel and shut up" or even testing every single animal, which is unnecessary and, frankly, impossible since it takes nine days to test a cow for BSE. When you consider that the Cargill plant processes 250 carcasses an hour, seven days a week, around the clock storage clearly becomes a major nightmare.

Clearly, it's not fair to compare Canada's fabulous beef industry with Britain's abysmal one, but hear me out.

In total, some 183,000 British cows were infected with BSE. Nevertheless, despite the feed ban, more than 43,000 of those infected cows were born AFTER July 1988.

If it's true BSE can't be spread from cow to cow and only either at birth or through its feed, then what was happening?

Experts say it's safe to assume that many of those 43,000 cattle were infected by what they were eating. Clearly, cattle cannibalism hadn't stopped.

So, were British farmers defying the ruminant-to-ruminant ban?

Yes, though not necessarily intentionally. Those cruddy cattle parts -- like the eyeballs, brains and spinal columns, called specified risk materials -- were now finding their way into chicken and pig feed and that feed was finding its way back to Bessy the cow and Bart the bull.

The Brits finally figured it out and in August 1996, the government imposed a feed ban that completely prohibited cattle and sheep parts from being rendered into ANY kind of feed.

Dr. Connie Argue, veterinary program specialist for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says after the first mad cow was discovered in Alberta in May, the CFIA "scrutinized" 200 Canadian farms and found three farms where cattle were found inadvertently eating themselves when they broke into bags destined for pigs and chickens instead. That's 1.5%.

"Those were extremely low-level incidental forms of exposure, but we are considering taking extra steps," said Argue, who is based out of Calgary.

The BSE working group meeting in Ottawa has the issue of a comprehensive ban on ruminant renderings entering any part of the animal food chain on its agenda.

By the way, in 2001 the European Union banned all cattle, chicken AND pig protein from the feed market altogether. Cows in Europe are herbivores again! Imagine that?

My guess is, our ranchers, truckers and feedlot operators are wishing the CFIA had been bolder years ago. If only.