Richard Farr v2: 20th January 2019 MAD COW DISEASE A BRIEF HISTORY OF A SUPPLY CHAIN IN CRISIS

Background

In the 1990s, “Mad Cow Disease” regularly made headlines. The proper name for the condition is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE): a progressive neurological condition causing severe brain and nervous system damage.

It was first reported in the UK in 1986, although there may have been CASE STUDY undetected cases in the previous decade. BSE is a very strange disease Learn how unsafe practices in the indeed, since it does not appear to be caused by any of the usual factors: preparation of viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites. Instead, BSE is believed to be caused animal feed led to a by prions: misfolded proteins that are able to replicate despite the fact that problem that they have no DNA. For this reason, prions are highly resistant to our normal brought an industry methods of sterilisation including heat, radiation and formaldehyde. The to its knees – and replicating misfolded proteins are very hard to destroy, and when they how it still affects us today. accumulate within a creature they become very dangerous indeed.

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Everything about BSE was a mystery – and a very worrying one when it became apparent that this issue wasn’t confined to the economics of the farming community: it could affect the health of the wider population. In 1996, new variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (NVCJD) was reported in ten people not otherwise considered at high risk. They exhibited symptoms similar to the infected cows: tremors, loss of coordination, neurodegeneration and typically death within thirteen months of diagnosis. The average age of those affected was just 27.

Scientists managed to solve a lot of the mysteries surrounding BSE. Some clues came from the strangest sources, such as the similarities found in the brains of NVCJD victims and people suffering from a disease called Kuru – a very rare neurodegenerative disorder observed in Papua New Guinea. Kuru was known to be caused by funerary cannibalism: a practice whereby relatives of a dead person would eat their corpse. In doing this they were likely to accumulate prions – frequently with fatal consequences.

Many people ate beef, and the similarities between NVCJD and BSE were undeniable… but cows didn’t eat cows, so where was the mechanism by which prions could be accumulated?

Origins of the Disease BSE probably began when cattle were given contaminated animal feed products. In modern industrial cattle farming, various commercial feeds are employed, containing ingredients such as antibiotics, hormones, pesticides and protein supplements. Soybean meal offers an excellent, plant-based protein supplement… but soybeans do not grow well in Europe. Here, producers turned to cheaper animal byproduct feeds as an alternative. These were made from meat and bone meal left over from the slaughtering process – plus the carcasses of sick or injured animals. This led, indirectly, to diseased animals being fed to healthy ones.

In sheep, a disease that acted a lot like BSE and Kuru had been known about since 1755. They called it scrapie, for the way that the distressed animals compulsively scratched themselves. Some time in the late 1970s or early 1980s, at an unknown site, it is hypothesised that the carcasses of sheep suffering from scrapie were processed into animal feed supplements. Historically, animal feed processing typically included a rendering stage that extracted valuable animal fats using a petroleum-based solvent. This would have acted to destroy the prions (one of the few things that does)… but this step ceased to be done when the price of the solvent became too high to justify the fat extraction process. Cattle feed pellets

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The Scale of the Problem With animal remains being used to make feed, prions could circulate in the food chain. Protein supplements containing sheep and cattle offal were banned in the UK in 1988, but it was not until 1991 or 1992 that the ban was strictly enforced. Thus, the scale of the epidemic in cows (measured as the number of new cases reported per week – at times approaching a thousand) didn’t start downward until late 1993.

In England, the most affected nation, more than 184,000 cattle were found to be infected and in total 4.4 million cattle were killed in an attempt to stamp out the disease.

In response to the risk of NVCJD, a number of new practices were adopted. Providing cows with safer feed has sharply reduced the number of new cases seen, while import controls, feeding regulations and surveillance measures have been enacted in disease-free countries. Changes were made to the practices used in slaughterhouses and certain parts of the animal are now never used as food (putting an end to once popular recipes such as oxtail soup). In Cattle destroyed in an attempt to eradicate the disease. the UK no animal more than 30 months old can be used as food. The European Union banned imports of British beef for ten years from 1996 and France continued to impose a ban on British beef long afterwards – illegally – although they failed to respond adequately to BSE outbreak of their own. Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Germany have also had outbreaks.

Worldwide, there have been 231 cases of VCJD in humans – 180 of them in the UK. Even today there is no cure and it leads to death about a year after diagnosis. Just four cases have been seen in the USA, and all were proved to have been picked up in Europe. To this day, an American can’t donate blood if they have spent a significant amount of time living in Europe, or if they received a blood transfusion while there.

Aftermath

The crisis forced policymakers to make some hard choices at a time when information was very limited. With hindsight it is clear that most of the animals that were slaughtered in an effort to halt the spread of the disease died needlessly.

In the UK, after a series of food and farming scandals, the Food Standards Agency was created in 2001. As a central regulator its stated mission is to put consumers’ interests first, but it depends upon a partnership with local authorities, who remain responsible for inspection, food testing activity and enforcement. Budget cuts in local government have reduced their ability to

capacify.wordpress.com 3 Richard Farr v2: 20th January 2019 deploy trading standards and environmental health teams, “The spread of BSE in however, with the result that some now struggle to fulfil their Europe … has shown statutory obligations around food. how the desire for Journalists have repeatedly highlighted hygiene and food profit can overrule labelling concerns where auditors have seen none. The every other Europe-wide “horse meat scandal” of 2013 was just the latest consideration.” to show that we still don’t know exactly what we are eating. – ERIC SCHLOSSER, Meat that is introduced into our food chain by criminals might ‘FAST FOOD NATION: lead to food poisoning; it might not meet with our cultural and THE DARK SIDE OF THE religious expectations… and it might put consumers at an ALL-AMERICAN MEAL’ increased risk of NVCJD.

Study Questions

Based upon the information provided in the case study, identify the “points of failure” – where harm could have been prevented, but where the instead decisions were made that would ultimately damage British cattle farming severely.

From the decisions that you have listed, identify the ones that could be said to have been ethical in nature.

The case study suggests that a ban on protein supplements containing sheep and cattle offal wasn’t effective for up to four years after it was enacted. Why do you think that was?

How could better procurement practices aid in improving the health of the UK’s herd?

Since food health scares of various kinds are still being seen in Europe and elsewhere, what else might be done to protect consumers?

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