"When is a cow too old?" Topic

President Lee of Korea has stated that he won't allow beef from cows more than 30 months old into the country. Is 30 months too old for beef? Can someone educate me?

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Did you read the article?

It's an issue of risk of BSE, which is a very low risk in animals slaughtered at less than 30 months. Most US animals are slaughtered at 24 months or less; the USDA requires removal of specified risk materials (brain, spinal cord) from animals slaughtered at over 30 months.

In the EU, BSE testing is only required for animals over 30 months. Back at the height of the European BSE scare in 2002, 1.6 million cattle under 30 months were tested for BSE, with no positive cases.

Yes, I read the article. I just wondered if there was a real risk with animals over 30 months old. I believe Lee's statements were political in nature, but wonder if there is real science to it. Not knowing anything about age risk in animal slaughter, I had no idea. Interesting statistics, but I wonder if testing over 30 months works. I remember reading recently that Europe has over 180,000 confirmed cases of BSE and the U.S. only 3. There were 6 times more cases in Japan, which has stricter testing. So, I'm not convinced that current testing, or testing at all, will reduce the risk of BSE.

Part of the reasoning – I think – is that the feed 3 years ago still had "animal proteins" in it.

I had a friend die of a version of CJD which he apparently contracted while visiting the UK some 6 years earlier so I have a bit of a passing interest.

But, given the protests that went on in Seoul, I'd not be surprised if there wasn't a little bit of political maneuvering in Lee's statement. Also, what 30 months does is virtually eliminate dairy cows from the mix as they don't enter the supply (in general) until after three calvings – which occur about once a year.

Wyatt

Wyatt – depends on what version of CJD he had. If it wasn't what is know as vCJD then it wasn't due to eating beef.

And may not have been even if it were.

Either way it doesn't really matter – it's a very very nasty disease and you have my sympathy.

Not sure for the reason for the three year limit. I thought it's because the condition never occurred in animals under this age so were safe.

As for reported cases of BSE – take reported numbers with a pinch of salt. The French under-reported theirs, and the Americans probably did also – though of course there's other health issues with US beef….

However, given BSE is very much yesterday's news I'd say the Korean position is trying to justify some protectionism.

Thirty months was the point decided upon as this was the age above which MOST cases of BSE were found. Confirmed cases under that age were rare but existed. The total numbers of younger than 30months BSE cases are quoted in this powerpoint on the Food Standards Agency – there's a slide in there describing the basis of the OTMS. It also lists the numbers of BSE-infected (slight difference) animals that were predicted to have entered the food chain aty various times.
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Defra has a package of stats that include age of onset (page 4).
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Animals that age or older used to be banned from the human food chain in the UK. Development and validation of rapid test methods now means that certain (and eventually all) over thirty months can enter the human food chain, but only if tested. This specific testing is in addition to the active and passive surveillance methods used for BSE. Passive surveillance is clinically driven, active surveillance picks up various classes of animal for testing from errrrm, 24 months and older from memory.

The BSE outbreak peaked in the early 90s and has dropped off since then. That doesnt mean the TSEs have gone away. Scrapie is still around and we have atypical scrapie recently adding to the mix. North America has Chronic Wasting Disease making its mark. Thats without going into actual human TSE disease cases.

Korea blocking cattle imports at 30months is using an internationally accepted cutoff point for risk of the specific disease in control of cattle imports for a disease that is present or potentially present in the stock of certain of its trading partners.