![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.510416666666667in"
height="1.4583333333333333in"}Release No. 0256.03

> **Transcript of Tele-news Conference\
>                         Senior USDA Officials hold background
> briefing\
>                             Regarding Canada's new BSE measures\
>                                                  Washington D.C.  **

**July 18, 2003**

 

**     ALISA HARRISON:** Thank you operator. Good afternoon everyone, we
appreciate you joining us today. We have today with us Dr. Elsa Murano
who is Undersecretary for Food Safety and David Hegwood, who is special
counsel, senior advisor to the Secretary. As we put on the media
advisory today, this is an on record availability but we do ask that you
attribute it to Senior USDA Officials. We won't make any opening
comments but I do want to alert you that we did release a statement by
Secretary Veneman just a few minutes ago. For those of you who haven't
seen it, it's a very short statement and I'll go ahead and read that and
then we will go to questions.

     Here's the statement by Secretary Ann Veneman:  

     \"Today, Canadian officials announced that they are implementing
additional safeguards to strengthen their system after the single BSE
detection on May 20, 2003. We appreciate that Canada is moving quickly
to address these issues. We commend the Canadian government for its
thorough investigation of the situation as well as its willingness to
have an international team of experts review the progress.

     \"The United States continues to have a very strong commitment to
ensuring that the U.S. beef supply is safe. We look forward to the
continued coordination among the United States, Canada and our other
trading partners to address the various and complex issues regarding the
single BSE case.\"

     As I said that was posted about 15 minutes ago and is being
distributed as we speak. So with that I am going to open it up for
questions for either David, Elsa or myself. So with that Operator let's
go to the first question.  

**     OPERATOR:** The first question comes from Paul Coring.

**     HARRISON:** As we get started, would state your media outlet as
well. That would be appreciated.

**     REPORTER:** Sure, my name is Paul Coring I am with the Globe and
Mail of Canada. I understand in the release it makes reference to the
complexity of this issue. I wonder if either of you could give me some
idea of how much the U.S. position and the conundrum the United States
finds itself in depends on its own export markets and the actions of
third party governments, Japan for instance. It seems to me the United
States can't act unilaterally in making its decisions on this.  

**     Senior USDA Official:** I can take that. This is David Hegwood.
Obviously we want to make our decisions on the basis of sound science.
Many countries have different standards that they use for mitigating the
risks from BSE. So one of things we are having to look at is how to
reconcile these different standards in some of our export markets. So it
is certainly a consideration but we are considering it within the
context of making decisions on the basis of sound science.  

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Richard Cowan.  

**     REPORTER:** Hi. It's Richard Cowan from Reuters. I'm wondering
whether given Canada's announcement whether the U.S. will now take some
similar steps and whether you can comment on whether Canada's
announcement speeds along your work on considering easing the trade ban
and if you have any schedule for that.

**     Senior USDA Official:** This is Elsa Murano. Let me answer at
least the first part of your question. As David Hegwood mentioned we
certainly base our policies on science because the goal is to insure
that we have continued a record of having a safe food supply, frankly.
And to do so we certainly avail ourselves of the best science. We had
commissioned a risk assessment by Harvard University; you may remember a
couple of years ago. So certainly we will evaluate how to avail
ourselves of the science that's available so that we could continue to
protect our citizens from BSE. We understand why Canada took the
measures that they did. They had a case of BSE in their country. So we
understand why they needed to take some action. We will just evaluate
what we need to do if anything to continue to protect our consumers.  

**     REPORTER:** Anything on the time table. ** **

**     Senior USDA Official:** Well it's a process we can't really
predict how long anything like that is going to take. We are considering
certainly whatever information is available that can help us decide
whether there is anything we need to do further than we are already
doing. We've had several protective measures since 1989---the feed ban
the Food and Drug Administration has had in place, the fact that we
certainly don't import products from countries that have had BSE.
Inspection that is very vigorous when animals are presented at plants. A
tripling really of the animal tests that have been done and that are
being done in this country. So we have a lot of safeguards that have
helped us I think make sure that this country doesn't have any cases of
BSE and that in fact is the case.  

**     HARRISON:** Dr. Murano you might also talk about some of the
steps you've taken on some of the high-risk material. ** **

**     Senior USDA Official:** Certainly. Regarding high-risk material
we have a test we use to verify that when we require the spinal cord for
example to be removed, we verify with these tests that there is spinal
cord material in these boneless beef products. So on top of all the
measures that I mentioned, we also have this very aggressive
verification testing protocol. So we feel very confident we do have a
safe beef supply here in the United States.  

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Alan Fryer, Mr. Fryer
\[ph\] your question. ** **

**     REPORTER:** Hi, it's Alan Fryer from Canadian Television, CTV. I
am not sure whether you folks actually saw the Canadian briefing but the
Canadian government position seems to be we've done as much as we can in
terms of the investigation, announced new measures which will soon be
implemented and that is time for the United States to lift the ban. I
believe Secretary Veneman herself said \`there is nothing wrong with
Canadian beef.' I guess my question bluntly is what are you waiting for
and precisely what is it that has to happen before the ban is lifted?  

**     Senior USDA Official:** Well there is no question that the
announcement by Canada is a key piece of the puzzle in this information
and it will be very helpful in a helping us to evaluate how to move
forward toward lifting the ban. One of the other things we need to do is
look at how the Canadian mitigation measures that are being put in place
will be viewed by our trading partners, so that is certainly one of the
things we will have to take into account as well as the evaluation that
Dr. Murano was just talking about.  

**     REPORTER:** So I don't want to put words in your mouth but you
have to wait and see what Japan's position is first before taking
action?  

**     Senior USDA Official:** Well what we need to do, as I explained
at the beginning, is since other countries have different standards in
place we need to evaluate how other countries are going to evaluate us
if we being to open the border. And having this information about what
Canada is going to do makes it possible for us to move forward in making
our own assessment about what impact this has on how other countries
view us in terms of our risk for BSE.

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Peter Shinn.

**     REPORTER:** Yes this is Peter Shinn with the National Association
of Farm Broadcasters national farm broadcast service. My question is,
you've both mentioned several times, you Ms. Murano and you Mr. Hegwood,
the decision will be based strictly on science. Well, if you are
satisfied with the science at this point is the decision becoming more
of a political one? **   **

**     Senior USDA Official:** I am not sure what you mean by
\`satisfied by the science.' Certainly the scientific information we
have available to us in terms of risk and the fact that certain
mitigation efforts such as the ones I mentioned that we've had in place
inn this country, what that effect that has in reducing the risk, these
are the kinds of pieces of data if you will, in making our decisions on
what policies we will follow and that of course is related to in the
case of Canada having had a case of BSE in their country, that certainly
changed the picture for them to a certain extent, necessitating them
taking certain actions. They did a tremendously thorough investigation
as you may know of other animals in their herds and they even had a team
of experts review that process to let them know if they had missed
anything. We certainly commend the Canadian government for having done
that. Because if was a difficult situation and they certainly spared no
expense in trying to get to the bottom of their situation, but it is a
complicated situation for sure. You know risk is something that you have
to try to evaluate as best you can with the information you have
available at the moment and there are certain things we still don't know
about this disease, and so we use what we have available to us know. And
certainly, again, I will talk about this Harvard Risk Assessment that we
conducted. Certainly it indicated that the measures we've taken in the
United States have resulted in a situation with the risk of BSE in the
United States as exceedingly low.  

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Jason Markisov \[ph\].  

**     REPORTER:** This is Jason Markisov with the Edmonton Journal in
Alberta, Canada.

     Mr. Van Clief in his press conference mentioned further steps
regarding feed in the coming weeks. What further steps would you like to
see that would help the process along?  

**     Senior USDA Official:** It is difficult to say at this time
because with the issue of feed, a lot of the focus is on a feed ban.
Here in the United States, we've had a feed ban in place for several
years which basically prohibits the feeding of feed that contains
material from a ruminant, such as cattle, to other ruminants because it
is believed by the scientific community that that is one form of
transmission of the agent and what we have found is certainly, enforcing
that fed ban is critical to not allowing the disease to spread if it
ever even establishes itself in a country. So enforcement of the feed
ban that even Canada has that is very similar to our feed ban is
certainly key to their efforts. ** **

**     HARRISON:** I would just remind you that in the U.S. the feed ban
is regulated and enforced by the Food and Drug Administration.  

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question is from Emily Gersema.

**     REPORTER:** I am Emily Gersema and I write for the Associated
Press. A lot of folks are speculating right now that because we haven't
lifted the ban we are just protecting our own markets since we seem to
be benefiting from this ban because our beef sales have gone up, our
sales to Japan have gone up. I just wanted to get your response to that.
** **

**      Senior USDA Official:** Well the North American market is very
integrated. We have been importing one million head of cattle into this
country for slaughter. We recognize the tremendous economic impact this
has had on Canada but its also had a significant economic impact on the
U.S. We don't want to see the border restrictions remain in place any
longer than is absolutely necessary and so we are moving as
expeditiously as we can to try and resolve this while at the same time
making sure that we are protecting our consumers and that the product
that we would let in would be safe and that the product that we would
export to other countries would be safe. So we don't\--that's our only
objective here is to make sure we are making these decisions on sound
science and sound risk management principles.    

**     OPERATOR:** Our next questions comes form Willie Vogt.

**     REPORTER:** Willie Vogt with Farm Progress. The questions I had
is regarding, if Canada had tightened so much on all of its regulations,
will they start to look at the United States in the same regard;
removing SRM. I know Dr. Murano already mentioned the high risk
materials, but we are now going to have lower or somewhat looser
standards than our Canadian trading partner---what type of pressures do
you see building in that area.

**     Senior USDA Official:** Well, that's obviously one of the issues
we will have to consider. This has been an integrated North American
market and we'd like it to return to that. The reality today is that
Canada has had a single BSE find and the United States has not so under
international guidelines Canada is considered a minimal risk country,
the United States is considered provisionally free. So those are two
different standards. We want to reconcile those so we can return to
having an integrated market. That's our objective.

**     REPORTER:** Follow up. To integrate the standard will that mean
we are going to look at tougher standards for the U.S. market?

**    ** Senior USDA Official: Well, that's a possibility.

**     REPORTER:** Thank you, David.  

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Lester Aldrich. Your
question please. 

**     REPORTER**: Yes, this is Les Aldrich. I am with Oster Dow Jones.
What is the USDA doing to help the U.S. industry comply with Japan's
request to separate all U.S. and Canada beef?

**     Senior USDA Official:** Well, at this point Japan has made that
request---we've had numerous discussions with the Japanese at various
levels about how or what if any measures we would put in place to
address Japan's concerns. We've got until September 1 to try and work
all this out and we certainly hope to do it in advance of that so we are
going to continue to talk with them about those measures so that is what
we are doing to help the U.S. industry. We recognize that Japan is a
very important market for U.S. exports and we are committed to trying to
keep that market open but we also want whatever measures that are put in
place to be based on sound science.  

**     REPORTER:** But what Japan has requested is basically
implementation of COOL by September 1 rather than September 30, 2004.
And we've stated we are going to have problems doing that. How are we
going to make it by then? ** **

**     Senior USDA Official**: Well, the question is not exactly the
same as COOL. And we haven't said that at this point we are going to do
what they have requested. We are discussing with them whether what they
have requested is really the best step to take.  

**     REPORTER:** I have another question. ** **

**     HARRISON:** Is that Les? Yes, one more then we need to move on.  

**     REPORTER:** Dr. Murano has sound science addressed the issue of
whether this is an isolated, sporadic case in Canada. We know that CJD
occurs spontaneously in humans, what are the chances this is a sporadic,
spontaneous case of BSE?  

**     Senior USDA Official:** Well, that's a very good question and I
wish I could tell you what are the chances. I don't know and I don't
think any scientist knows what are the chances this could have been a
sporadic case. But if it was a sporadic case, the fact that Canadian
officials found it before it entered the food supply, it certainly
speaks to their good systems of surveillance. And our systems are even
better in the sense we certainly do even more tests on animals. So
sporadic or not we should be able to find animals that have this agent
and certainly the fact that we continue to do this testing and in fact
we have tripled it about a year or so ago is extremely important measure
of protection that we have in this country and I think it has resulted
in our not having any cases here.

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question is from Mike McGinnis.  

**     REPORTER**: My question is for Dr. Murano...  

**     HARRISON**: Mike, just for the record you are with DTN?  

**     REPORTER:** I am Mike McGinnis from DTN. My question is for Dr.
Murano. But just moments ago Minister Lyle Van Clief stated, after he
mentioned their SRM removal, he was asked why don't you harmonize these
measures with the U.S. Wouldn't that help get the border open. He said,
to the reporter, \`I've talked to the U.S. about this and have not been
able to make any progress in that regard.' Could you respond to this?

**     Senior USDA Official:** Let me try to respond in one way. Again
the fact that Canada had a case of BSE and we have not had a case of BSE
you certainly understand that it makes sense that they would take
measures that are different from the measures that we have. That just
makes sense. It has happened throughout the world, whenever a country
experiences having a case of BSE that has been the situation. Now what
do we do from here in terms of whether we take the same measures that
they are taking that is what we are evaluating at the moment because we
certainly want to do that which is supportable by science. We don't
necessarily want to do something that is for other purposes or other
reasons and we are still talking to the Canadians by the way to make
sure we can see where we can agree on what are the highest risk
materials and how we can insure that those don't end up in the food
supply.  

**     HARRISON:** Operator, I think we have time for one more question.
 

**     OPERATOR:** Our next question is from Tam Moore.  

**     REPORTER:** Tam Moore of Capital Press. I know that the feed ban
is not your thing, it's FDA's but I wonder if we could move over to the
surveillance program. There is an indication that the Canadian's are
stepping up their surveillance program there is a 1999 study in the U.S.
that shows about 200,000 downer cows a year. Our sampling is about 10
percent. Is there any look by APHIS at increasing that sampling.

**      Senior USDA Official:** Do you mean sampling of live animals for
BSE?

**     REPORTER:** Downer cows.

**    **

**Senior USDA Official:** Right, I think if I am answering your question
correctly, if I am understanding you, this is the testing I just
mentioned. We have done about 20,000 tests just last year, which is
above and beyond what anyone else has been doing. Canada was doing about
1,000 tests per year. So, even without any cases of BSE we've gone over
and above the testing that most other countries do. And that is
something that we will continue to do. I am not sure I answered your
question.

**     REPORTER:** Well I probably didn't phrase it to well. I was told
by one of your epidemiologists who was speaking publicly on Monday this
week that it's not just at the slaughter houses and sale yards which is
the point where the downer cattle are being picked up---are we going to
make any effort to increase the sampling, particularly those that just
call when your animal goes down on the farm or the ranch?  

**     HARRISON:** Tam, this is Alisa. Let me answer that. I know Dr.
Murano may be hesitant to answer on behalf of APHIS, she's over at FSIS.
But certainly she said we have tripled the amount of testing which far
exceeds the international standards, certainly looking at---and our
testing is very targeted---its' targeted at those high risk animals. And
when you look at from a risk assessment standpoint that appears to be
something everyone can agree on is the best use of the resources. But
certainly as we move forward our surveillance programs are something
that we will continue to review and make determinations in the future.

**     REPORTER:** Thank you.  

**     HARRISON:** Your welcome. I think that is going to have to be it
for tonight. Thank you all for joining us today. We will have a
transcript up as soon as we can. Likely won't be tonight but we will try
to post it this weekend. As soon as we are able to get it back from the
transcriber. Again thank you very much.  

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