Is Our Food Supply Chain Infiltrated by BSE?

Bovitrak a vital component in effective hazard control

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was first seen in cattle in Great Britain in November 1986. That first case was a harbinger of things to come. By September 2002, approximately 180,900 cases of BSE were confirmed in the United Kingdom (UK). By 1989, cases of BSE in cattle had arisen in other European countries, and in Israel and Japan, though in relatively small numbers.

BSE is part of a group of diseases that affect mammals. These diseases, known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), are prion diseases. They result from the build-up of abnormal prion proteins in the brain and nervous system. TSEs are always fatal.

Sheep and goats are commonly infected with scrapie, a form of TSE, as are mink, North American mule deer and elk. Since TSEs require a long incubation period, it usually takes four to six years for cattle infected with BSE to show signs of the disease. However, when BSE-infected meat is fed to cattle, the disease process is accelerated and symptoms begin appearing in much younger animals.

The origins of BSE are unknown, though it is strongly suspected that it developed when meat products from sheep or goats infected with scrapie (a related disease), were incorporated in cattle feed. This initial mistake snowballed when meat products and bone meal from BSE-infected cattle were recycled back into the food chain as cattle feed, closing the loop.

Since young cattle rarely show BSE symptoms, the infected animals made their way into the human food chain. Many years later, people who had consumed tainted beef began showing symptoms of a variant of the human TSE, Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (vCJD). In the United Kingdom alone over 100 people have died of variant CJD. It is impossible to predict how many other people are incubating the disease. BSE can potentially be transmitted to humans through:

food containing beef
blood and blood products
meat and bone meal
human and bovine tissues used in biologicals
pharmaceuticals

Normally, infectious agents such as bacteria and viruses can be controlled; the agent that causes BSE is extremely resistant to any of those controls. Cooking does not kill BSE. Removing the infective agent from the food chain is the only way to keep BSE out of the food supply. Beef Concepts' Bovitrak system is ideally suited to facilitate steps to secure the food supply, providing the proactive approach that is critical in fighting a disease like BSE.

The risk of BSE remains urgent. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently urged all countries, not just those in Western Europe, to be concerned about the risk of BSE and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). FAO, in a strong statement issued from Rome, called for action to protect the human population, as well as the livestock, feed and meat industries, describing the recent emergence of BSE cases in the European Union and other countries as "an increasingly grave situation. … Much remains unknown about the disease and the infective agent. There is currently no method of diagnosis at early stages of infection and no cure for the disease, neither in animals nor in humans."

If a country has imported cattle or meat and bone meal (MBM) from Western Europe, especially the UK, during and since the 1980s, the population can be considered at risk from the disease. FAO considers "that there is an urgent need to refine the risk assessment and to extend it to other countries and regions. Countries at risk should implement effective surveillance for BSE in cattle and controls on the animal feed and meat industries."

Within countries, FAO recommends applying the so-called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP), targeted at identifying potential problems and implementing corrective measures throughout the food chain. Among these issues are animal feed production, raw materials used, cross-contamination in the feed mill, labelling of manufactured feeds, the feed transport system, as well as monitoring imported live animals, slaughtering methods, the rendering industry and the disposal of waste materials.

Is Our Food Supply Chain Infiltrated by BSE?

Bovitrak a vital component in effective hazard control

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