Will U.S. consumers be switching from grilled beef to grilled tofu, chicken, or pork chops at this year’s barbeques (note to Southerners: that’s a verb reference in this context)? Events in the beef cattle industry have raised some concerns about the U.S. beef supply, mostly because three cases of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy — mad cow disease) have emerged so far in Canada. Infection was also reported in an American dairy cow brought in from Alberta, Canada. Canadian beef, one import source for the important table product for American consumers, is a very valuable agricultural export for Canadian producers.
When a mad cow was discovered in Alberta, Canada in May 2003, the U.S. halted imports of Canadian beef. The Canadian beef-ban is scheduled to end in March 2005, and so far the U.S.D.A. has not retracted its decision to allow cross-border trade to resume. The U.S. Cattleman’s Association is calling for an extension of the ban even though the U.S.D.A.’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is confident it isn’t necessary. Cows can’t transmit the disease to each other through direct contact, but the damaging effects of having sick cows in American herds presents a marketing nightmare to American cattle producers. The U.S.D.A. is taking the matter seriously, while trying not to raise a health-scare panic. And perhaps none is needed.
U.S. vegetarians need not be concerned, but second-order vegetarians — those of us who only eat animals that are naturally vegetarians (like cows) — have been watching the situation with interest. I say naturally vegetarians because the source of the disease in cows is feed containing animal parts, or blood, of sheep and goats carrying a related disease called scrapie. Before 1997, sheep and goat parts were common feed components for dairy and beef cattle, particularly in Britain. Past outbreaks of BSE have been concentrated in Britain, where over 180,000 infected animals have been identified since 1986. Huge health, as well as financial concerns, are at stake.
One of the most obvious fears for consumers is the concern that the bovine spongiform encephalopathy will affect humans. Humans can contract a related disease, Creutzfeldt-Jackob disease, or variant CJD, if they consume beef parts contaminated with the BSE “agent” (probably an abnormal protein).
But note that pot roasts, steak, and the like are low-risk cuts of meat, even in an infected animal, given the way the disease-producing agent for BSE is distributed in the cow. BSE proteins are mostly found in the brain, skull, eyes, spinal cord and vertebral column, and other nervous system parts of cattle younger than 30 months of age. These parts are not widely used for human consumption in the United States, and have been banned from entering the human food supply here. If eaten, contaminated animal parts can cause the onset of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The disease is described as “usually fatal,” even though there is a variant of the disease, vCJD which may remain “subclinical” and never cause overt symptoms.
Since precautions have been enacted, it is likely that your steak is perfectly safe. But perceptions matter, as we have seen in past food scares. Even without any demonstrated health risks, fear of harmful side effects may steer consumers away from beef, much as the Alar scare turned consumers away from apples in the late 1980s. A fall in the demand for beef, particularly Canadian beef, will pump up demand for substitute products like chicken, pork, turkey, fish, and (if it is perceived as safe in the mind of consumers) American beef. Will prices for the substitute products rise? Perhaps. It depends on the size of those shifts toward consumption of other foods. Clearly pork producers, along with poultry processors and others, will benefit somewhat from such a shift. Beef prices could tumble if consumers avoid beef “just to be on the safe side.”
Real risk or not, when consumers reject a product, producers are driven out of the market. Thousands of acres of apple orchards were converted to housing developments or simply abandoned for commercial production when market demand (due to the pesticide scare) vanished overnight. The effects for beef producers could be similar, and perhaps as unwarranted. Fortunately for producers of beef cattle, there may be a new market solution to this problem.
The widespread mad cow infections in Britain prior to 1986 required time-consuming testing techniques. These probably prevented some healthy cows from going to market, and may have failed to prevent the marketing of infected cows. Either outcome is costly — both in health and in dollars.
Enter the entrepreneur. A new technology has been developed that promises to provide high-speed testing, high reliability, and low operational costs for detecting BSE. The test, called PrioStrip™, was developed by a firm that specializes in the production of rapid tests for BSE, HIV, and tuberculosis. It won’t become generally available in the U.S., however, until approved by the U.S.D.A. PrioStrip™ is also awaiting approval by the European Commission.
How can we avoid the need to load up the grill with tofu burgers, turkey legs and Portobello mushrooms at the next cookout? Encourage regulators to be thorough but speedy in their evaluation of new cattle testing products. If we avoid regulatory roadblocks like those that have plagued vaccine and other pharmaceuticals production, we can quickly and accurately evaluate the health of suspect animals, and avoid disruptions for consumers and producers alike.