BSE, which is fatal for cattle, causes the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans. This illness, which is fatal in humans and has about a 12-year incubation period before symptoms appear (in cows it is eight years), is believed to be caused by prions, a maverick protein that literally chews holes in the brain. BSE does the same thing to cattle. Little is known about the disease and there is no cure at the moment. Live cattle cannot be tested for BSE.

Between 1986 and 2002, some 181,000 cases of BSE were documented in cattle in the United Kingdom. In the same period 129 people died from the human strain of the disease, which has continued to cause deaths in the UK. The British government ordered about 3.7 million cows slaughtered to contain the outbreak. In 1995, London banned the practice of using ground up cattle in cow feed to maximize growth. The spread of the disease among cattle flowed from this profitable practice by the barons of the meat industry. Since that time, cases of BSE have been reported in 17 countries.

In Canada no complete records are kept on individual cows, unlike the current practice in Europe with cow “passports,” so the origins of the one animal diagnosed with BSE so far are not known.

The cow was slaughtered January 31. A veterinarian declared it unfit for human consumption, because it was underweight and was a “downer,” that is, it could not walk. It was suspected of having pneumonia. Then its head was kept in one of two animal pathology labs in Alberta for four months before being tested for BSE. The provincial government of Premier Ralph Klein had previously closed three of the four government testing facilities in the province as part of budget cuts, resulting in a huge backup for testing. Farmers can go to two private labs at their own expense.

Seventeen farms with 1,900 head of cattle were quarantined in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. By June 3, some 1,100 cattle had been slaughtered. Tests on another 800 animals are finished and came back negative. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been unable, using DNA tests, to pinpoint the birthplace of the infected cow. As a result, another 650 cows from five farms are being rounded up and slaughtered for tests since there is a possibility the diseased cow spent some time at those farms.

The May 22 Toronto Globe and Mail, whose editors speak for a broad layer of Canada’s capitalist rulers, said in an editorial on the BSE crisis: “It is too early to blame Premier Ralph Klein’s government. But the specter of government cuts may cast a heavy cloud over this crisis, as was with the tainted water tragedy in Walkerton and the recent SARS outbreak in Toronto.”

In May 2000 seven people died and hundreds got seriously ill in Walkerton, Ontario—some with permanent damage—from drinking water that contained a deadly form of the bacteria E.Coli. Public outrage forced an inquiry that revealed that the Ontario government’s decision to close public health labs and loosen regulatory control over municipal water systems was at the root of the crisis.  
 
Profits before health
In both the Mad Cow Disease and SARS crises, provincial governments and capitalist politicians have focused on its “economic ramifications” on the profits reaped by their class, rather than the health needs of the majority of the population or its impact on the livelihoods of workers and farmers.

Beef production and related industries is big business in Canada. The beef industry is worth $7.5 billion a year and involves 14,000 workers. Pet food production stands at $1 billion a year. Some 70 percent of beef produced in Canada is exported to the United States.

At this point thousands of workers in the beef industry have been laid off, feed lots have been shut down, and farmers whose herds have been quarantined and slaughtered are facing a bleak future.

From the beginning of the outbreak, capitalist politicians have been campaigning around the theme that the meat is safe and the bans on beef produced in Canada should be lifted.

“I want to stress from the beginning that this is one cow,” said federal agricultural minister Lyle Vanclief.

“This is a problem with one herd and one cow,” echoed Prime Minister Jean Chrétien as he tucked into an Alberta steak for the cameras in an Ottawa restaurant.

The Alberta government hired a PR agency to prove that Alberta beef is safe.

“That’s ludicrous,” said David Westaway, a molecular biologist at the University of Toronto. “It doesn’t matter what a PR agency does but the scientific facts.” Westaway charged that the same pattern of evasion of the health issue has emerged in Canada as in the original outbreak in the UK.

A soon-to-be-released study funded by the European Commission, the executive body of the 15-member European Union, argues that the British government placed the interests of the meat industry ahead of public safety. The study, according to the Toronto Star, reports that protecting the market for British beef was the first priority until a full decade after BSE was identified.

Officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which represents many of the thousands of meat-packing workers who have been laid off at plants like the Tyson-owned Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alberta, and Better Beef in Guelph, Ontario, have called on the federal government to waive the two-week waiting period for unemployment benefits as they have done for workers in Ontario who have been out of work due to the impact of SARS. The government has rejected this demand.

At the same time, the UFCW officials echoed the government’s stance by issuing a statement titled “Food workers union urges restraint in response to case of mad cow disease.” It pays lip service to the health question and centers on maintaining the market for beef produced by UFCW members.

“UFCW Canada is aware and disappointed to hear about the important bans on Canadian beef, by the United States, Australia and Japan,” says the release. It goes on to call for the lifting of the U.S. ban.

On May 30, Shiv Chopra, a Health Canada scientist, was suspended for two weeks and fined three months pay three days after he cosigned a letter with four other scientists asking Ottawa to ban animal feed suspected of causing Mad Cow Disease.

“We consider that the primary cause for the transmission and spread of this disease, animal feeds containing rendered materials of other animals, has been allowed to prevail for much too long and is continuing,” the letter said. “We urge that to contain the disease a complete and immediate ban must be placed on the use of all such materials in any kind of food and other products for both people and animals.” In 1997 Ottawa banned the use of rendered cattle in cow feed, but the ban was only partial. Rendered cow material is still used in chicken and hog feed, pet food, and other products.  
 
Warnings on SARS ignored
Meanwhile, following a new outbreak of SARS in Toronto hospitals at the end of May, Dr. Richard Shabas, former chief medical officer of health for Ontario, charged that hospitals let down their guard under political pressure. On April 23, the World Health Organization advised people to postpone all but essential visits to Toronto. This set off a storm of protests from politicians worried about the impact on tourism and the hotel and convention industry. The travel warning was lifted a week later.

“We let our guard down too soon,” said Shabas, now chief of staff at York Central Hospital. “I think it is because we felt political pressure.”

The SARS crisis began in March. As of June 3, the number of deaths stood at 32, with 60 active probable cases, 6,800 people in quarantine, and another 5,200 health-care workers in “working quarantine.”

On June 3, Ontario premier Ernest Eves rejected a demand by nurses in the province calling for a public inquiry on the handling of the SARS crisis by the government. The nurses said that health and other government officials ignored their warnings of the possibility of a new outbreak.

The next day, nurses from the Ontario Nurses Association, demonstrated at the offices of provincial health minister Tony Clement, demanding increased pay for all nurses, full-time jobs, and better protective gear for those working in hospitals.

John Steele is a meat packer and a UFCW member.
 
 
Related article:
Canada ‘mad cow’ crisis: man-made  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home