HEALTH/AGRICULTURE-SPAIN: Mad Cow Disease Brings Enormous Losses

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Nov 28 2000 (IPS) - Spanish stockbreeders are suffering major losses due to the appearance of “mad cow” disease. On top of a plunge in domestic consumption, Poland banned imports of beef from Spain Monday.

Two cattle infected with “mad cow” disease (or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy – BSE) were detected in Spain last week. Consumption of BSE-infected beef is the cause of the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

The two cases occurred in Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The autonomous government of that province ordered the immediate slaughter and incineration of the two cattle and 46 others that had come into contact with them.

The two infected animals were offspring of cattle from the Netherlands and Austria, according to the ranchers who imported them. All cattle over 30 months of age must be screened for BSE.

Beef purchases in Spain have fallen by around 30 percent since the cases were reported, while prices have dropped by around seven percent.

But in some slaughterhouses, sales have plunged by up to 50 percent, said Fernando Pascual, president of the Spanish Association of Meat Companies.

Spain brings to 10 the number of European countries where cases of BSE have been reported. Leading the pack is Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with 10,795 cases, followed by Portugal (405 cases), Ireland (351), France (126), Belgium (16), the Netherlands (six), Germany (two), and Denmark and Luxembourg (one each).

Poland’s Agriculture Minister Artur Balazs announced a ban on imports of Spanish beef Monday, after adopting a similar measure several weeks ago against imports of beef from Germany, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. Poland banned beef purchases from Britain, Switzerland and Ireland in 1998.

The minister said cattle raised in Poland on an old-fashioned diet of grass and grain are 100 percent safe, and pointed out that his country has no tradition of feeding livestock with rations containing animal protein.

BSE is one of a group of little-known infectious diseases that affect humans as well as animals, and which are not caused by a virus or bacteria, but by a “prion” protein that is transmitted to cattle when they eat feed containing animal remains, especially bone meal and nervous tissue, from infected animals.

The prion triggers a slow biochemical reaction that modifies the protein molecules in the brain, according to researchers. In consequence, the brain takes on the consistency of a sponge, and the victim eventually dies.

Prion proteins do not seem to trigger any immune response from the victims, and they are highly stable and can withstand extreme temperatures, radiation and antiseptics that would kill other infectious agents.

The German government announced that as of Wednesday it would ban feed containing animal protein for all livestock destined for human consumption. In Spain, the government and the opposition are discussing the need for a similar ban.

However, the government of Jose Maria Aznar is waiting for a binding decision by the European Commission, the European Union (EU) executive arm, while the leading opposition force, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) is demanding the immediate adoption of a ban.

EU Health Commissioner David Byrne criticised Spain and Germany for opposing preventive measures in the past, and recommended that they seek help from European experts.

Minister of Health and Consumption, Celia Villalobos, acknowledged the existence of clandestine slaughterhouses, which are not subject to veterinary controls.

Villalobos announced the creation of a “food security agency”, which she said was needed “to impose some order in the spheres of consumption and public health.”

Stockbreeders, meanwhile, say it should be the state instead of themselves who assume the cost of incinerating infected animals and remains.

A scientific adviser to the Spanish government and member of the EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, Juan Badiola, proposed “urgent, radical and indispensable” measures like a blanket ban on animal meal containing remains of cattle, sheep and goats.

The ban will apply to feed for any animal, including pigs, chickens and farm-reared fish.

Creutzfeld-Jakob disease was an extremely rare ailment only reported in people over 55 until 1996, when its connection with BSE was detected in Britain, where 81 people have died of the disease since then.

The first symptoms include loss of memory and coordination, involuntary jerking movements, insomnia, hallucinations and muscular weakness. The patients rapidly lose the ability to walk or talk.