MAD COW DISEASE Cattle industry copes with new uncertainty

Some commodities and stocks dipped after disease suspicions were announced.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Cattle country dreaded it for years -- the specter of some stumbling "downer" cow turning up at a U.S. slaughterhouse with so-called mad cow disease.
"It's just been something in the back of our minds that it could show up," said David Clawson, who raises cattle near Meade, Kan. He spent Wednesday phoning other worried cattlemen. "We're all convinced that prices are going to go down. We just don't know how much."
Confirming some of his fears, Mexico on Wednesday joined Japan and South Korea in banning American beef imports after Tuesday's report of a possibly infected dairy cow in southern Washington state. The three represent the largest foreign customers for American beef.
Worry about evaporating export markets and uncertainty about whether the American diet would maintain its taste for beef sent cattle and grain futures tumbling, dragging down the price of hamburger-related stocks such as McDonald's Corp. and Wendy's International.
Quick action
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, charged ahead with a multipart attack in the wake of the discovery of a presumed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- BSE to cattle folk, who cringe at the term mad cow. The department has:
UEngineered a recall of beef processed alongside the suspect cow.
UDeployed agents to a quickly quarantined farm and to feed lots to track the animal's life and diet.
UJetted the animal's brain tissue to a British laboratory to confirm the diagnosis.
All scientific evidence suggests mad cow disease spreads through cattle when they eat the nerve tissue from infected animals. That's why a ban on such feed was imposed in 1997. Yet USDA investigators struggled Wednesday to figure out how this cow, born after the feed ban, got sick.
On a second front, the department and industry officials campaigned against consumer fear -- hoping to defend a $30 billion-plus industry that exports 10 percent of its meat.
They championed the powers of the American system that had so far kept the country's cattle free of the disease and stood to prevent any infected material from spoiling the food supply.
"The risk to human health is still extremely low," said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, making a point to say she'll eat beef at Christmas dinner.
Uncertain times
Yet with Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Africa and Russia also joining in the American beef ban, even cattle optimists braced for a tough stretch.
"Prices will bounce back after people calm down," said John Riffle, who raises about 50 head of Angus cattle near Pleasant Hill, Mo. "But I don't know when it will happen."
His wife, Jean, put her confidence in American consumers. "They know," she said, "our beef is safe."
The first North American case of mad cow disease came in May in Canada. A subsequent ban on imports of Canadian beef -- since somewhat relaxed -- devastated the cattle industry there even as Canadian demand for the meat remained steady. Thirty nations ultimately banned Canadian beef.
Although beef consumption here is at record levels -- sparked partly by low-carbohydrate weight-loss plans -- demand in Europe sits at a full fourth below 1989 levels.
Because the cow was a "downer," her brain and spinal cord tissue were removed from the human food supply and sent to a rendering plant. There it would be ground into a brown sugar-like meal used as feed for swine, poultry and pets, all of which scientists think cannot contract the disease.
Trying to keep its herd clean of mad cow, the United States in 1997 stopped the import of beef or live cattle from Europe. That same year, it outlawed feeding ruminants, or cud-chewing animals, to other ruminants. At first, however, about a quarter of feed producers were violating the ban. Today, the government says fewer than 1 percent of feed companies break the rule.