In February, Canada found the ninth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) on its soil. It involved a seven year-old bull in Alberta. And it turns out it's possible the mother of that bull also gave birth to an animal that got exported to the U.S. for slaughter in 2002 and ended up in a Nebraska packing plant.
What's confirmed is that a member of the "birth cohort" of the BSE-positive Albertan bull did get exported to a Nebraska feedlot and slaughtered at a packing plant in the state. Being in the birth cohort means that the mother of the exported animal was, at a minimum, born within 12-months of the mother that gave birth to the BSE-positive bull. And it's possible the mother of the BSE-positive bull and the mother of the exported animal could be one in the same.
So, who really cares about this. BSE isn't transmitted between "birth cohorts" or from mother to calf so this is a lot of smoke about nothing.
Put another way, because my son is autistic, does that mean my other kids will be autistic? Of course not and this BSE case is the same way.
Why this even made the news is beyond me. It has no relative merit in the real world.
If everything is very important, then nothing is important. Brian Mulroney
So why did USDA/CFIA put so much effort in to tracking down all the other herdmates and birth cohorts of these herds-- and destroying them?
Wasn't this what USDA raised all the hoopla about us needing a Manadtory ID for? Where they trying to give us a snowjob again?...
USDA/NCBA used to preach "sound science", then changed to "best science available"-- but it all should just be "the science of the day that best fits what the Packers want it to"....