For Release May 29, 2001

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

Keep your fingers crossed and your guard up! Foot and Mouth Disease may be waning in Europe, but it doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. I haven’t seen agriculture get this much press since the farm crisis in the mid 1980’s. Again, it’s always the crises that bring the attention of the public to agriculture. And again, confusion reigns!

Catastrophic livestock diseases are nothing new. We’ve had them before, there is one occurring somewhere in the world all the time, and we will face one, eventually in the United States. But rather than run around crying that the sky is falling, we all need to be aware of the real risks, all of us, from the livestock producer right down to the consumer. Based on some of the questions that I have been receiving, there is a lot of confusion about the animal diseases that we have been hearing about.

The two that I’m hearing the most about are Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Mad Cow Disease. Mad Cow is a rather inappropriate name for what is better known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE. FMD is a severe, highly communicable viral disease of cattle, sheep, swine, deer and other cloven hoofed ruminants. BSE is a chronic degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system of cattle.

Once an FMD epidemic breaks out, it can spread very rapidly. A producer can be trying to do everything right and their animals can still become infected. BSE is generally spread by feeding animal feed that contains contaminated meat and bone meal as a protein source. The feeding practices of cattle producers in the USA have changed to reduce this from happening. BSE does not spread from casual contact of infected animals with non-infected animals.

FMD is rarely fatal to livestock. It does make them very sick and very unproductive. Infected animals do not normally regain lost weight for many months, if they ever regain weight. Recovered cows seldom produce milk at their former rates. FMD is not a human health risk. Humans can not get the disease.

BSE is a fatal disease. It is a slow degenerative wasting away. The causative agent for BSE is found in the brain and spinal column of cattle. There is some evidence that if humans consume products containing brain or spinal cord from infected animals, they can develop a similar disease known as New variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (vCJD). While classic Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease is occasionally found in the United States, vCJD has never been found here.

FMD was last reported in the United States in 1929. BSE has never been reported in the United States. What does this mean? It means that it is still safe to eat beef. I might be very cautious of what you eat if you go to Europe, but in the US, I wouldn’t worry about BSE. Very comprehensive steps are being taken by federal and state government and by individual producers to make sure that we don’t have a problem. Everyone can help in this effort by becoming more aware and informed about these diseases, how they spread and what the real risks might be.

More information on both of these diseases is available at the Geary County Extension Office, 119 East 9th, Junction City. You can also find this information on the world wide web at http://www.aphis.usda.gov.

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