According to the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF), US cattle producers are disappointed that US cattle has been placed in the same BSE risk category as Canadian cattle by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and has criticised the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for not seeking a more favourable classification. USDA is said to be satisfied with the OIE’s decision to class the United States and Canada into the same risk category for BSE, classifying both countries as a ‘controlled’ risk for the disease.

 “The question of whether the US at least meets OIE’s controlled risk category for BSE has never been disputed,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “The real question is why didn’t USDA seek the more favourable category of a BSE ‘negligible’ risk country? Under a negligible risk, the most favourable designation of the OIE, a country cannot have had a BSE case born in the previous 11 years. The younger of the two BSE cases detected in the USA was determined to be 10 years old, and this was more than a year ago. Therefore, as of today, the youngest case detected in the U.S. was born more than 11 years ago, meeting the standard for a BSE negligible risk country.”

He added, “The problem with lumping the US into the same category as Canada is that the rest of the world knows that Canada has an inherently higher risk for BSE than the United States, so the US has basically sold itself short.”