Monday, January 30, 2012

Cattle producers have wide eyes for Japan

Jamie Woodford
It only took nine years, but Canadian beef is finally making a comeback. South Korea lifted its ban last week that had been imposed after the 2003 BSE outbreak. Now the industry is looking to widen Japan's doors.
The island nation began accepting Canadian beef in 2005, but currently only allows import of cattle under 21 months.

As the third-largest beef-importing market in the world, Japan, along with its strong currency and consumer purchasing power, is a lucrative market, according to Steve Molitor, head of Cargill Meat Solutions.
He spoke about production trends and global market opportunities for high-quality beef products at feedlot conference held in Lethbridge Wednesday hosted by Certified Angus Beef and Elanco Animal Health.
"Japan is a great opportunity from a currency standpoint. It's still a very big buying power for Japan to buy U.S. beef. Their currencies have appreciated pretty high, and so they're still buying beef today like they bought beef six, seven, eight years ago in prices," he said. "So from a price standpoint it's a very good, strong market." More

‘Humane slaughter’ doesn’t have to be an oxymoron

Last week, the United States Supreme Court struck down a California law requiring slaughterhouses in the state to immediately euthanize “downers” — animals that can no longer walk or stand.

The judicial decision was based on the relatively boring grounds of federal pre-emption doctrine. Essentially, states can’t make laws in areas that the federal government already has covered. But the case also raised the more lively public issue of “humane slaughter” — how animals should be treated when (and in the moments, hours or days before) they are killed for their meat.

Activists in the U.S. are complaining that current federal regulations are inadequate to protect sick or injured animals from egregious abuse (not to mention protecting consumers from tainted meat). The California law in question was passed after the Humane Society of the United States released a disturbing undercover video showing downer cattle being kicked, prodded with a forklift and having water shot into their nostrils from a high-powered hose. Animal protection groups such as Farm Sanctuary point out that meat packers have an obvious financial incentive for keeping downers alive as long as possible so that they might be processed. More

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Researcher at heart of bird flu studies controversy reveals details of his findings

TORONTO - A scientist at the centre of a raging controversy over bird flu transmission studies has broken his silence, in the process revealing information about his study that has not been made public previously.
In a commentary in the journal Nature, flu virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka argued the work he and other high level influenza scientists do to try to puzzle out why some flu viruses spread in humans while others don't is too important to be shelved.

"Our work remains urgent — we cannot give it up," wrote Kawaoka, who up until now has made no comment on the controversy that is pitting flu scientists against the community of biosecurity experts, some of whom insist no further transmission studies on the dangerous H5N1 flu virus should be undertaken.

In his commentary, Kawaoka revealed that his laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison made a hybrid virus, fusing the hemagglutinin protein (the H in a flu virus's name) from H5N1 onto the human H1N1 virus that caused the 2009 pandemic.

The H1N1 virus spreads easily among people but H5N1 currently does not.

They found the viruses came together readily, and spread easily among ferrets kept in separate cages. Ferrets are considered the best animal model for predicting how a flu virus will act in humans and that type of study is meant to replicate the conditions under which flu viruses transmit among humans.

But while it was highly transmissible, the mutant virus did not kill the ferrets, Kawaoka reported. In fact, it was no more pathogenic to the animals than the 2009 H1N1 virus, he said. More

Philippines gained for Canadian cattle

OTTAWA, Ontario – New access to another international market has been gained for Canadian cattle, sheep and goat producers. The Government of Canada has secured live-ruminant market access to the Philippines, announced Canada’s Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and International Trade Minister Ed Fast.

Each year, the Philippines imports $9 million (US$8.9 million) worth of cattle and approximately $300,000 (US$296,496) worth of sheep and goats. In 2010, the Philippines imported more than $235 million (US$232 million) worth of Canadian agricultural and agri-food products.

Last week, South Korea announced that Canadian beef less than 30 months of age can re-enter its market. Link

No (legal) backyard chickens for Toronto anytime soon as city committee defers study

The backyard hen issue has gone to roost — for now.

On Wednesday, the city’s licensing and standards committee voted to “defer indefinitely” a request to study the feasibility of allowing backyard chickens in Toronto.

Residents are already raising hens on their property for their eggs, and advocates say it makes sense to legalize a practice that is in lockstep with the growing local food movement.

The committee heard from a number of hen supporters, including an urban food writer, a public health researcher and two Grade 9 brothers who joined a club in their high-school dedicated to changing the city bylaw. “Our generation is really into knowing where food comes from,” said Matthew Patel, who goes to Upper Canada College and has four hens at home.

Lorraine Johnson, author of City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food G
rowing, said Toronto does not have to forge a new path, it can simply look to what other cities such as Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles and Kingston have done in removing restrictions on keeping hens in urban areas.


But members of the committee raised various issues with the birds, including noise, possible public health risks, nuisance to neighbours, animal welfare, and sapping strained city resources. Some worried it could lead to residents wanting to raise other farm animals in the city.

“This is the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life,” said Councillor Frances Nunziata.
“I think people who want the farm experience can grow some tomatoes,” said Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker. More

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Equine biosecurity workshop to teach disease prevention

By Adam Jackson

Security in any environment is a good idea and on the farm where animals co-mingle, it is import to protect your animals against disease.

A free equine bio-security workshop scheduled for Jan. 26 will help farmers, ranchers and hobbyists do just that.

“What we’re hoping to do is teach people about bio-security and keeping their horses safe,” said Alberta Equestrian Foundation equine biosecurity project manager Mikka Shatosky. “It’s about keeping their horses, themselves and the communities safe.”

Dr. Aleeta Haas of West Country Animal Clinic and Bear Creek Animal Clinic will be the guest speaker for the event.

Shatosky says that one of the main goals for the workshop is to promote processes that can help with disease prevention within the farming community. More

Scientists pause research with lab-bred bird flu

WASHINGTON - Scientists who created easier-to-spread versions of the deadly bird flu said Friday they're temporarily halting more research, as international specialists debate what should happen next.
Researchers from leading flu laboratories around the world signed onto the voluntary moratorium, published Friday in the journals Science and Nature.

What the scientists called a "pause" comes amid fierce controversy over how to handle research that's high-risk but potentially could bring a big payoff. Two labs — at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison — created the new viruses while studying how bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat to people.

The U.S. government funded the work but last month urged the teams not to publicly reveal the exact formula so that would-be bioterrorists couldn't copy it. Critics also worried a lab accident might allow the strains to escape. The researchers reluctantly agreed not to publish all the details as long as the government set up a system to provide them to legitimate scientists who really need to know. The National Institutes of Health is creating such a system.

"We recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks," lead researchers Ron Fouchier of Erasmus and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Wisconsin wrote Friday in the letter. They were joined by nearly three dozen other flu researchers. More

South Korea resuming imports of Canadian beef

SPRUCE GROVE, Alta. - The end of a ban on Canadian beef exports to South Korea restores almost all markets lost due to the scare over mad cow disease more than eight years ago, but industry leaders say there's still work to do.

"It certainly moves us along the road to closure but we haven't experienced closure yet," said Travis Toews of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. "There's still a number of key markets where we need expanded access in order to return to pre-2003 market access levels."

The federal government announced Friday that South Korea — the last remaining Asian market still closed to Canadian beef — is reopening its borders to shipments of boneless beef from cattle under 30 months old.
The $30-million-a-year value of that trade will be a small part of overall exports, but Toews said the agreement means that 90 per cent of Canada's market access has been restored. More

Three countries report H5N1 cases, deaths

By Lisa Schnirring

The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed three new H5N1 avian influenza cases from Indonesia and Egypt, one of them fatal, a day after Vietnam's health ministry announced a death from the disease, its first in nearly 2 years.

Indonesia's newest case-patient is a 5-year-old girl from Jakarta province who died from her infection and is a family contact of a man who died from H5N1 on Jan 7, the WHO reported. The girl's illness was detected on Jan 7 during surveillance as part of the investigation into the man's infection.

She was referred to a hospital and began having breathing difficulties on Jan 13. The girl's condition worsened, and she died on Jan 16. The WHO said the girl had been exposed to the same pigeons implicated in the man's death and shared the same household environment. Surveillance of the patients' contacts hasn't found any more H5N1 infections.

The girl's illness and death raise Indonesia's H5N1 total to 184 cases, including 152 fatalities. The country leads the world in both categories.

One of Egypt's cases is in a 2-year-old girl from Cairo governorate who was treated for flulike symptoms as an outpatient at a hospital on Oct 30, according to a WHO statement. Her H5N1 infection was detected by Egypt's Central Public Health Laboratory during periodic screening of respiratory samples collected from outpatient surveillance sites. More

Badgers culled in UK to control bovine TB

MeatPoultry.com, Jan 19, 2012

LONDON – Jim Paice, the United Kingdom’s Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), announced landowners and farmers from West Gloucestershire and West Somerset can now apply for licenses to shoot badgers to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB).

In 2010, the disease required the culling of 25,000 cattle. Over the next 10 years, it has been estimated dealing with this disease could cost taxpayers around £1 billion (US$ 1.5 billion) if not effectively addressed.

The two areas were selected as the most suitable to pilot controlled shooting of badgers. This forms part of a science-led and closely monitored policy to bring bovine TB under control, Paice said.

“Bovine TB is a chronic and devastating disease,” he added. “It causes the slaughter of tens of thousands of cattle each year, and is taking a terrible toll on our farmers and rural communities. Nobody wants to cull badgers. But no country in the world where wildlife carries TB has eradicated the disease in cattle without tackling it in wildlife, too."

The two pilot programs are part of a wide range of activity on bovine TB, he added. “We already have robust measures to control its spread amongst cattle, which we plan to strengthen further, and are continuing to work hard on the development of practical and usable vaccines,” he said. “Natural England will now assess applications against a set of strict criteria. If these are not met, licenses will not be granted.”

The culls will allow the careful examination of how safe, humane and effective controlled shooting is. Farmers and landowners in these areas can now apply to Natural England as a group for a license to participate. Applications will be assessed against strict criteria before a decision is taken on whether to issue a license.

Participants must take reasonable measures to mitigate the risk of badgers with TB relocating or spreading bovine TB to areas surrounding the culled area. These could include natural barriers that help stop the movement of badgers — like coastline, rivers and major roads — or vaccination of badgers in the surrounding areas before the pilots begin.

Professor Christopher Wathes, professor of Animal Welfare at the Royal Veterinary College and the current chair of the Farm Animal Welfare Committee, will oversee monitoring and evaluating the pilot areas. He acknowledged that badger culling is a very sensitive issue and that the group will be completely independent in their work.

“I will be joined by a selection of experts from a range of disciplines and our job will be to carefully consider the design and conduct of the pilots to enable a thorough examination of the humaneness, safety and effectiveness of the culling method being used,” he said.

Localised badger culls 'increase risk of bovine TB'New research says reactive culling is counter-productive method of controlling tuberculosis in cattle

Localised badger culling can more than double the risk of TB infecting cattle, a new Medical Research Council study has shown.

The results come as the government considers whether farmers should be allowed to organise badger culls in selected areas. They confirm that responding to TB outbreaks by killing local badger populations can significantly raise the risk of more cattle contracting the disease.

This is different from "proactive" culling which systematically eradicates badgers from known problem areas covering at least 150 square kilometres.

In a few days the government is expected to announce whether farmers in selected areas of western England should be granted licences to carry out proactive badger culls.

Prof Christl Donnelly, from Imperial College London, who led the Medical Research Council trial, said: "These findings add to the evidence that localised reactive badger culling has a detrimental effect on tuberculosis risk for cattle.

"This may explain why culls in the past were ineffective at reducing the incidence of bovine TB." More

More data needed on tamiflu: journal

Some health experts are calling into question the safety and effectiveness of the widely used anti-flu drug Tamiflu, which the World Health Organization calls an “essential medicine.”
The British Medical Journal said it is still waiting for manufacturer Roche to release its clinical trial data for review, two years after it promised to do so.

“Roche’s refusal to provide full access to all its data leaves critical questions about how well the drug works unresolved,” said a report by the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit organization that reviews health-care research.

Cochrane researchers set out to test Roche’s claims that Tamiflu prevents complications from flu and reduces the number of people needing hospital treatment. They say they found inconsistencies in some published reports and possible under-reporting of side-effects, but they can’t conduct a complete analysis until the drug maker provides all of its data, the BMJ said in a statement Tuesday.

Based on its evaluation so far, Cochrane questions Tamiflu’s effectiveness and says its ability to prevent the spread of flu has not been demonstrated.
Tamiflu is the drug many governmentsaroundtheworld, including Canada’s, have stockpiled in case of a flu pandemic. More

Tamiflu effectiveness questioned: Roche withholds trial data

By Petra Rattue

Two years ago, pharmaceutical giant, Roche, promised the BMJ to release key Tamiflu trial data for an independent investigation. However, Roche refuses to provide full access to all its data. According to a new report by the Cochrane Collaboration, Roche's refusal to provide access leaves critical concerns about how the drug works unresolved.

A BMJ investigation, published at the same time as the report, also voices serious concerns regarding drug data access, the drug approval process and the use of ghostwriters in drug trials. More

Monday, January 16, 2012

The flap over bird flu research


At a conference in Malta last fall, a virologist announced that by infecting a ferret with a mutated strain of bird flu, then infecting another ferret with nose swabs from the first, and repeating this 10 times, he created a strain of virus that could pass from ferret to ferret without the swab, simply through the air.

In effect, Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Holland had weaponized bird flu.

Provocative as it was, his experiment went largely unnoticed until last month, when the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Bio-security asked the world's leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, to withhold publication of key details of the methodology and results of Prof. Fouchier's experiment, and of related work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The request to censor science on national security grounds was unprecedented, and caused a global furore. The journals, which have not yet published the papers, signaled their agreement in principle, on the condition that the omitted details be made available to other responsible scientists. More

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

CFIA lays 60 charges against chicken processor

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has laid 60 criminal charges against Brampton, Ont.’s chicken processor Maple Lodge Farms.

According to an article in the Toronto Star, the CFIA alleges that between December 2008 and February 2009, and then December 2009 and April 2010, thousands of chickens died during transportation to slaughterhouse due to exposure to cold conditions.

So far two of the counts have been heard in a series of six hearings at the Ontario Court of Justice, in Brampton.

In one count, dated “on or about” Dec. 30 and Dec.31, 2008, the Crown alleges that 711 broiler chickens, of nearly 10,000 in shipment, were found dead on arrival at the company’s slaughterhouse. More

Red Deer hatches plan to study chicken licensing

A report will move forward on how best to allow Red Deer residents to keep egg-laying hens in their backyards.

On Monday, Red Deer city council authorized staff to look into licensing urban chickens, allowing chickens as a permitted use under the land-use bylaw or any other alternatives. The report will be prepared for the Feb. 21 meeting and then council could decide then what should be done.

Councillor Tara Veer had asked for staff to expand its scope on the report because she thought that licensing could be the best way to appease supporters and non-supporters of urban chickens.

She said since the issue arose, after the Advocate first published a story last fall on a Red Deer family raising chickens, there have been far-reaching opposing views. But the concept of licensing seems to be the appropriate balance from what she's heard from citizens.

"It's one of those fun and interesting debates," Veer said following Monday's decision. "There's certainly a lot of chatter in the community about it." More

Parasitic fly could explain worldwide bee die-off

US scientists say they have found a possible explanation for a honey bee die-off that has decimated hives around the world: A parasitic fly that hijacks the bees' bodies and causes them to abandon hives.

Scientists say the fly deposits its eggs into the bee's abdomen, causing the infected bee to exhibit zombie-like behaviour by walking around in circles with no apparent sense of direction. The bee leaves the hive at night and dies shortly thereafter.

The symptoms mirror colony collapse disorder, in which all the adult honey bees in a colony suddenly disappear.

The disease is of great concern, because bees pollinate about a third of the United States' food supply. Its presence is especially alarming in California, the nation's top producer of fruits and vegetables, where bees play an essential role in the US$2 billion almond industry and other crops.

The latest study, published yesterday (NZ time) in the science journal PLoS ONE, points to the parasitic fly as the new threat to honey bees. It's another step in ongoing research to find the cause of the disease. More

Thousands of baby chickens lost in Picture Butte barn fire

A fire north of Lethbridge has claimed the lives of 19,000 baby chickens.

A barn near the town of Picture Butte caught fire just after 9 a.m. Saturday morning, said Picture Butte fire Chief Sam West.

The chicken farm had been loaded with animals just two days before it burned to the ground, he said.

“It was just the little ones, they were just starting to grow them.”

The cause of the fire, which took several hours to douse, is still under investigation.

The owners of the farm are at a loss to explain the blaze.

Colleen Vredegoor said she and her husband lost half their flock.

“We’re still not sure what happened,” she said. They called 911 after their barn alarm went off.

Another passerby on the nearby highway also called police when flames started to lick the roof and walls of the wooden structure.

“I think my husband and I are quite shaken with the whole experience, but you just keep pushing forward,” she said. “The barn is totally levelled, there was nothing left of it.”
More

Controversial bird flu studies raise complex problem, defy easy solutions: WHO

Controversial bird flu studies that are pitting influenza researchers and scientific journals against biosecurity experts raise complex issues and should not be framed in simplistic terms by proponents or opponents of their publication, a World Health Organization official suggests.

While it's tempting to boil the arguments down to a single issue — the evils of censorship, the sanctity of open science, the dangers of bioterrorism — to do so ignores the many difficult questions that the scientific, public health and security worlds need to work through to forge a path forward, Dr. Keiji Fukuda said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Fukuda, an influenza expert and the WHO's assistant director-general for health security and environment, was commenting on the roiling controversy surrounding two unpublished studies about the H5N1 flu virus.
The studies reportedly detail how researchers in the Netherlands and the United States pushed H5N1 avian influenza viruses to evolve to the point where they became easily transmissible among ferrets. Ferrets are considered the best animal model for predicting how a flu virus will act in people.

The studies, in the publishing pipelines of the journals Nature and Science, drew the concern of an expert group that advises the U.S. on biosecurity issues and so-called dual-use research — legitimate scientific work that could be used for nefarious purposes.

The National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity urged the U.S. government — which followed the advice — to ask the journals not to publish the guts of the studies, suggesting they are in effect recipes for how to turn H5N1 viruses into a potentially potent bioterrorism weapon. More

USMEF: Mexico offers favorable market access for U.S. beef

Mexico was the first foreign market to reopen to U.S. beef following the discovery of BSE in 2003, and since that time Mexico has perennially been the largest volume market for U.S. beef exports. But some BSE-related restrictions on imports of U.S. beef, including a 30-month cattle age limit, still remain in place for Mexico. Speaking recently to a group of U.S. beef producers and exporters, U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) Regional Director Chad Russell said a full reopening of this market is a top priority for U.S. trade officials, and some progress is being made. For example, beef feet and sweetbreads were recently removed from the list of U.S. beef items prohibited by Mexico (prohibited items still include ground beef and mechanically separated meat). The cattle age limit, however, remains a difficult obstacle to overcome.

Despite these age and product restrictions, U.S. beef exports to Mexico performed very well in 2011. With two months of results still to be posted, beef exports to Mexico (including variety meat) reached nearly 470 million pounds valued at $818.2 million. This is a 6 percent increase in volume and an impressive 25 percent increase in value over the first 10 months 2010.

South Korea moves step closer to allowing Canadian beef imports to resume

OTTAWA - South Korea has taken a "big step" towards allowing imports of Canadian beef to resume after a more than eight-year ban, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and International Trade Minister Ed Fast said Friday.

The two ministers said ratification by the South Korean parliament of import health requirements for Canadian beef under 30 months of age is among the final steps necessary before beef trade resumes.

"This has been a long journey and today's announcement is a big step forward for our hard working beef producers to once again bring their world class product to the South Korean marketplace," Ritz said.

"The re-opening of this market will benefit our industry and the entire Canadian economy and we look forward to the finalization of the commercially viable agreement and the commencement of trade."

South Korea banned imports of Canadian beef and beef products in May 2003 following the country's first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, commonly referred to as mad cow disease. More

Bird-flu research spurs fears of bioterrorism

The World Health Organization issued a stern warning Friday to scientists who have engineered a highly pathogenic form of the deadly H5N1 bird-flu virus, saying their work carries significant risks and must be tightly controlled.
The United Nations health body said it was "deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences" of work by two leading fluresearch teams who this month said they had found ways to make H5N1 into an easily transmissible form capable of causing lethal human pandemics.

The work by the teams, one in The Netherlands and one in the United States, has already prompted an unprecedented censorship call from U.S. security advisers who fear that publishing details of the research could give potential attackers the know-how to make a bioterrorism weapon.


Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Bird+research+spurs+fears+bioterrorism/5932083/story.html#ixzz1jBl0L4Sj

Flirting with bird flu

Tempting fate is never wise; tempting a flu pandemic is downright foolish. Yet, it is impossible for scientists to understand influenza or create vaccines without at least some risk. The question, then, is what level of risk is acceptable.

On Dec. 20, 2011, the American authorities said they had asked the world's leading scientific journals to withhold research on the matter.

The request, to Science (an American publication) and Nature (a British one) is unusual. But so is the research in question. Two separate teams, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of WisconsinMadison and Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, have tinkered with H5N1, otherwise known as bird flu. The resulting strains are dramatically more dangerous.

According to the World Health Organization, bird flu has killed more than 330 people since 2003. That is a staggering 60 per cent of the 570-odd cases recorded worldwide in that period. (The actual fatality rate may be lower since non-fatal cases of bird flu are more likely to escape detection than fatal ones.) The Spanish flu of 1918-20, which infected 500 million people, claimed the lives of no more than one in five sufferers.
H5N1's toll would certainly have been greater than hundreds had it not been for an important limitation: Unlike its Spanish sister, it is not easily transmitted to humans, or between them. But if the virus ever evolved to hop nimbly from person to person, it too could wreak a pandemic.

That evolution has now occurred, helped by the researchers in Madison and Rotterdam. Each team engineered the virus so that it could be transmitted through the air from ferret to ferret (ferrets, surprisingly, are good proxies for humans). Details of both studies are still under wraps, but a paper Fouchier presented in September at a virology conference in Malta outlined his team's approach.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/editorials/Editorial+Flirting+with+pandemic/5933869/story.html#ixzz1jBkSlOIj