MAD COW scandals just don鈥檛 stop. In a week when Britain recorded six new
cases of vCJD, the biggest real monthly increase so far, it has become clear
that it has almost certainly inflicted this curse on the rest of the world.
Britain continued to export animal feed made from the ground-up remains of
infected cattle long after it knew that the pellets spread BSE to other cattle.
The rest of the European Union, which caught BSE from Britain, was still
exporting it until last month. Now the likes of Indonesia and Thailand face a
disease that even the richest countries can barely afford to control
(see 鈥淭omorrow the world鈥�).
Britain insists that the feed was meant only for pigs and chickens. Importers
and farmers in Europe might have known not to give the feed to cattle, but you
can bet this message didn鈥檛 reach farmers in South-East Asia.
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It seems incredible. In 1990, Britain declared that the most infectious
organs had to be removed from cattle carcasses destined for feed in the EU. Yet
for feed sold elsewhere, this rule was not brought in for another year. Did
nobody think of the consequences of sending this stuff to farmers in the
developing world? Even restricting the feed to pigs and chickens may not be
safe. These animals too end up in cattle feed, and could pass the infection
on.
The newly industrialising nations that bought the tainted feed all have
booming livestock industries, and rendering plants that will recycle the
infection in feed for local consumption and export. What鈥檚 a poor country to do?
Germany plans to throw 400,000 cattle onto the scrap heap. Can a country where
the children are going short of protein afford to do that?
Despite the current worries in Britain and across Europe, the greatest damage
will not be from vCJD. Unless the disease turns out to be extremely widespread,
it will barely show up beside malnutrition, malaria and AIDS. The real harm will
be to food production. Carcasses are cheap protein, and if BSE means poor
countries can鈥檛 use them for fodder, they will not be able to produce as much of
the meat and milk their people crave.
In a world dominated by trade, rich countries will force the poor to take
draconian measures against BSE鈥攐r refuse to buy their meat, as North
America is doing to Brazil. The poor will lose industries, jobs and income. So
some will hide their mad cows, and the plague will continue.
Britain and other rich countries that exported contaminated feed need to pay
now for tests to identify which importers鈥� cattle are infected. Besides the
moral responsibility, this could help head off some of the legal action that is
already starting against Britain as the source of BSE.
And what about the next surprise that staggers out of our crowded barns? We
need to be more wary of new diseases, and we need agencies with the power and
the backbone to enforce precautionary measures. This idea is unlikely to go down
well with the World Trade Organization. But BSE should have taught us that, in
the end, the price of anything less will be too high.
