TORONTO — Canada and the United States have discussed relaxing a U.S. ban on Canadian beef imports while officials investigate whether mad cow disease has spread beyond an infected animal discovered last week, Canada's agriculture minister said Thursday.
The United States and other countries banned all Canadian beef products after officials announced on May 20 that one case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, had been detected in Alberta. It was the first reported BSE case in North America in a decade, and only the second ever on the continent.
Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief said he had spoken with U.S. agriculture officials about allowing some beef products across the border, including veal and muscle cuts from younger cattle.
"I'm confident that the U.S. wants this border opened as much as we do," he said.
Vanclief spoke with Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman on Thursday, but details of their talks were not provided.
The ban has halted sales and slowed production in a $22 billion industry. Agriculture and health authorities insist the risk to the public is minimal and the infected animal did not enter the human food chain.
Three farms in British Columbia did receive poultry feed made from the cow's carcass. Poultry cannot contract BSE, but officials cannot prove that cattle at the farms never ate the feed.
Tests on 192 animals from the most recent herd of the infected cow came back negative, and further tests are being conducted on cattle from farms linked to the infected cow or calves she produced. Animals must be killed to be tested.
Mad cow disease was first diagnosed in Britain in 1986 and is thought to have spread through cow feed made with protein and bone meal from mammals.
Canada banned the use of ruminant animal-based feed for cattle in 1997, meaning that because of its age, the infected cow could have eaten infected food before the ban took effect. It was believed to be between 6 and 8 years old when it was killed.
Additional cattle being tested include 600 from three farms in Alberta and Saskatchewan, along with 49 from another Saskatchewan farm where the infected cow is believed to have lived for four years, officials said.
Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Thursday that investigators were waiting for results of DNA testing to determine where the infected cow was born.
He said more animals could be quarantined as investigators continue tracing other cattle that came in contact with the infected cow.
The human form of BSE is the fatal brain-wasting illness variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Scientists believe people get the human form of the disease by eating some meat products from infected animals. More than 130 people have died of the disease, mostly in Britain.