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U.S. court sees little mad cow risk from Canada

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 13:54 CDT

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. imports of young Canadian cattle pose a negligible risk of spreading mad cow disease two years after Canada found its first domestic case of the illness, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Monday.

The 56-page 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, explaining a two-paragraph order 11 days ago, said a Montana district court in March overstated the risk of such imports, which the U.S. Agriculture Department had wanted to resume.

"USDA decided to reopen the border to Canadian ruminants after making a reasoned determination that the importation of a small number of BSE infected cattle into this country would not pose a serious risk to humans or livestock," Judge Wallace Tashima wrote for a three-judge panel.

The decision faulted a lower court preliminary injunction halting, at the request of a ranchers' group, a January U.S. plan to resume imports of Canadian cattle less than 30 months old.

The dispute follows the discovery of four Canadian mad cow cases since May 2003, including the first U.S. case in a dairy cow imported from Canada later that year. A second U.S. case was confirmed a month ago in a 12-year-old Texas-born cow.

By contrast, tests in the United Kingdom showed the deadly bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) spread to tens of thousands of their cattle in the late 1980s.

Despite the handful of recent North American cases, U.S. appetite for steaks and hamburgers remains strong.

"The district court's concern over the possibility of 'stigma' harming the American beef industry appears to be overstated," Tashima wrote. "The record does not support the district court's alarmist findings that the 'irreparable economic harm' the district court foresaw from the stigma of Canadian beef will actually befall the American beef industry.

"Following the case of BSE diagnosed in a Washington State cow in 2003, consumer demand for, and confidence in, American beef remained strong."

SAFEGUARDS IN PLACE

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said America's northern neighbor had safeguards to bar the spread of BSE.

"The secretary had a firm basis for determining that the resumption of ruminant imports from Canada would not significantly increase the risk of BSE to the American population," the decision said.

"USDA necessarily decided that the risks inherent in the uncertainty surrounding the current scientific understanding of BSE were insufficiently significant to justify the continued exclusion of Canadian cattle," Judge Tashima wrote.

The plaintiffs in the case, the Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, had no immediate comment.

The appeals court -- the last rung of the U.S. federal court system before the Supreme Court -- also said that "Canada's already low rate of BSE is decreasing." It cited Canada's feed ban, BSE testing and others measures as factors minimizing BSE in their cattle.

(Additional reporting by Sophie Walker in Washington)

Source: REUTERS

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