We've all learned about this disease since it was first discovered several years ago in Europe. And so I think we've learned from the European experience.
From Ann Veneman
We had a single find of BSE in this country. And we believe that what we're doing is appropriate action taken in an abundance of caution under the circumstances. And I believe it's the right thing to do.
I also believe that it's the right thing to do, to maintain strong consumer confidence in our food systems. And I believe that the consumer should have strong confidence in our food systems.
It's been studied to the point where we know that the impact on humans would be from consuming the most infected parts of the cow; that is, the brain and the spinal cord.
I have to say that in this particular cow that we're dealing with, those parts of the cow were removed, and so we don't think there's any risk or very negligible risk to human health with this particular incident.
Actually, in this instance we do have probably a better tracking system than was the instance in Canada. Because this is a dairy cow, they're all individually tagged.
I think it's a little early to tell what the economic impact will be. This year our cattle prices have been particularly high. The demand for beef has remained strong in this country, even though there was the single find in Canada earlier this year.
Now, the impact on export markets - we export about 10 percent of what we produce, so obviously that will probably have some impact on the market. At this point it's too early to determine how much.
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