According to CNN, the first U.S. case of Mad Cow Disease has been discovered in the U.S.
Already, Japan and South Korea have banned beef imports from the U.S. Japan is the largest beef purchaser of U.S. beef.
I don’t profess to know much about this topic, but it seems like, if true, it could have serious ramifications economically, and perhaps, politically.
So, I’m not starting the debate (bad form in GD, I know) but figured it would lead to some interesting answers.
Any takers?
We Canadians can ban your beef?
Bryan Ekers is right, run a google on Mad Cow in Canada and you can get just a glimpse of what happens when just one cow shows up with BSE. In summary:[ul]1.) Every country you export beef to will close their borders forever (Japan still doesn’t allow Canadian beef).
2.) Farmers will be forced to slaughter thousands of healthy cows since from what I understand the cow has to be killed to be tested, someone please correct me if I’m wrong. Slaughter houses will have to be closed costing job losses. Then feed lots will be closed causing more job losses. People will stop buying meat and eatting out causing more lob losses. It will take time to get the slaughter houses back open and feedlots running again so a lot of cows will get too old to be sold and have to be wasted costing farmers millions.
3.) This will be the only positive test, but the world will demand every aspect of the beef industry gets revamped.
4.) The news media will terrify the nation causing the ill-informed masses to freak out and stop eating meat, not just beef.
5.) There will be a few rallies and concerts for the farmers.
6.) The affected states (keep in mind that any neighbouring state will get shut down too) will start crying for federal aid money, this will last for months.
7.) Every economic shift for the next two years will be blamed on this one case of BSE.
8.) Another catastrophe will occur and everyone will forget.[/ul]
Enjoy the next 3 months.
Right. So I guess to elaborate a little, will this affect the economy, either in a macro sense, or in a more limited sense (farms, slaughterhouses, certain regions) so that it has an effect on, say, the 2004 election?
Or anything else? Will the amount of money needed to support farms, or however else it takes effect, actually hurt the supposedly rebounding economy? Will Wall Street take significant notice?
etc…
I’m going to take a guess and say that the stock of McDonald’s, Burger King, and the like are probably going to have a “sell” rating for a while.
This situation has the potential for seriously harming the beef industry. Am the only person who thought that this cow couldn’t have been the only one with BSE in the U.S.?
Hi, I worked in the meat industry for a year, trading in beef it so happens.
That said, I have no special info about the topic!
I live in Japan. Japan itself has had BSE cases, so it seems a little cynical to ban US beef so easily.
Has Australia had a case yet? My guess is that eventually this will appear everywhere.
The fact remains that only a handful of people have possibly gotten this (admittedly horrible) disease from eating beef, so the risk level has got to be pretty small. Worth doing something about, but not worth worrying about.
IMO, the US and Japan for that matter are too focused on beef, pork, and chicken. There’s a heck of a lot of other good meat out there, both wild and domesticated: deer, goat, sheep, squirrel, etc.
You guys should respect Condoleeza Rice more… the title of this thread is outrageous. 
Hey, I’m finally glad I’m too poor to buy beef, and have been sticking with pork and chicken.
Revtim,
I heard a silly story about chicken being overloaded with female hormones… and that might be triggering homosexuality in men… or formerly men. What is safe nowdays ?
I confess that, having both family and friends in the Canadian beef industry, I had a good chuckle when I heard this news. Bad of me, I know, but there it is.
How export-oriented is the US beef industry, though? Ours is very export-oriented, and hence has been hammered extremely hard. But the US has a much larger domestic market which should mitigate the ridiculously low prices Canadian farmers have faced.
There is a Reuters news report the tainted beef may have already been eaten. Then again, there are conflicting local media stories saying the tainted beef went through a Portland area meat packer, while other reports find no such evidence.
I wonder if the low carb diet craze will take a sharp turn?
Despite the Administration’s assurances this is a single isolated case, I’m not so sure they can gear up for the worldwide political fallout.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/bse-overview.html
The above is a link to general information about BSE. (Mad Cow Disease) This was developed before the disease was identified in the U.S.
There are current reports at www.usda.gov , which is a home page. There is an action plan in place to address this eventuality. You can read it at the websites.
I’m thinking that I read somewhere that normal cooking of beef to the medium-rare stage destroyed the threat of disease in humans, but I couldn’t find that statement in a short search.
The old saw about “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” will be true in this case. BSE’s causing disease is very rare in humans, even in countries with cattle herds known to be infected, and usually only affects persons over 63 years of age.
One infected cow in Washington State should not cause panic, but it probably will.
The Japanese had to be forced, through trade agreements, to import beef from the U.S… They will doubtless use this as a reason to stop their imports.
In short it’s not going to stop me from enjoying lots of beef, which may be cheaper due to the decreased export market.
I do not expect USDA to initiate wholesale slaughter of cattle herds. Maybe the herd with the infected cow and immediate neighbors. This would be done in order to perform autopsies. Traditionally, when the government has forced the slaughter of a herd for health reasons, they’ve paid the farmer so he can re-stock the farm.
Cooking doesn’t destroy BSE. Prions can withstand very high temperatures. That said, the nasties exist only in the central nervous system, i.e., brain and spinal column. Not exactly your usual fare. The danger of infection comes from the fact that it’s SOP to divide a beef carcass in half right through the spine, leading to the chance of contaminated spinal column coming into contact with the meat. There was talk here of altering slaughter procedure to leave the spinal column intact, but I’m not sure if those changes have or are to become mandated. In any event, your chances of developing variant CJD are worse than your chances of winning the lottery, so it doesn’t seem very reasonable to alter your behaviour because of it. Especially when you’re likely to be able to score beef on the cheap.
This has already affected the economy.
The place that I used to work now charges an additional 15 cents per cheesesteak because we cut off imports from Canada after their Mad Cow scare. If we have a Mad Cow epidemic here in America the costs will be absolutely catastrophic. As it is the price of beef wholesale has effectively doubled where I live. Imagine if American suppliers can’t meet the demand for their beef. Imagine McDonald’s dramatically downsizing. Imagine all the steak joints that will have to close.
This has the potential to be far more destructive than anything we’ve seen yet. And it’s really a question of when, since it will eventually happen. It’s bound to happen.
Sorry for all the doom and gloom, but this is bad. This isn’t Y2K, this is real.
At the very least, the beef industry might have to accept huge European-style changes in inspection regimens just to regain public trust (and some news articles have quoted longtime critics of the industry who say such is long overdue). That would certainly have an impact.
As for Airman’s statement, that could very well be true, but maybe it’s some sort of sign, if so much of our food industry is so dependent on this one food type that it would cause THAT much economic damage? Maybe it’s time to try to start weaning ourselves off that dependency?
Hey, maybe there’ll be more Chik-Fil-A’s?
Errr…Airman? Beef prices will drop, not rise. As export markets vanish, there will be an overabundance of beef on the domestic market. Lower demand with the same level of supply. It’s not the end of the world. Some ranchers will go out of business, a lot of others will lose a bunch of money, and the size of the overall beef herd will shrink a bit over the next few years. The reason your beef prices went up because of the Canadian BSE case was because you guys banned our beef, voluntarily cutting yourself off from a major supplier.
Bleh. The ramifications: a lot of ignorant, paranoid people are going to make stupid decisions and cause a lot of undue stress. With any luck, I can drown my shame of the masses and the media in a glut of 1970s-priced McDonald’s cheeseburgers - assuming the price of beef drops and doesn’t become underproduced and more expensive.
Just like the quake yesterday in central California, this is an issue getting more press than it deserves.
By Gorsnak: “Beef prices will drop, not rise. As export markets vanish, there will be an overabundance of beef on the domestic market.”
That’s my take on it. I don’t think we’ll see much in the way of shrinking cattle herds in the US. Last week beef cattle and calves were selling at an all time high. A little increase in domestic supply, due to smaller exports, probably won’t force many ranchers out of business.
To clean up my previous post a little. If this comes back as a positve case, that ranch will be closed down and most of the cattle there killed and tested. Near by ranches will be closed down and their cattle killed. And then any ranches that have a connection (inter breeding programs) will follow the same fate.
The export market will close, flooding the domestic market with too much beef and zero demand, generally lowering prices. If the price of meat falls farmers all over the US will lose a ton of money.
Here’s the tricky part: with that excess meat, farmers won’t be able to sell their current cattle. Cattle have a set usable lifespan, after which they can’t be sold for meat. This is what really killed the Canadian market, too many farmers were left with too many cattle past their prime. So even after the market returned they were stuck with a lot of useless animals.
As a result, Canada saw two dominos fall imediately: slaughter houses closed, and feed lots closed, both of those are huge industries and make up the secondary economy of rural areas. In short, anything that serves farming suffers, and these groups are unlikely to recieve any aid. Farmering tends not be be a huge employer, its the secondary industries that employ entire towns. This is where you will see huge job losses.
The next thing is that the stock market should fall, in theory. I think its safe to say that the NYSE is going to take a dive in the next few days, fortunately it will be closed for most of Christmas. Any business relying on meat will take a big it. Then in theory companies that rely on chicken, pork, and vegitarian should go up, but I doubt they’re large enough to compensate.
If the export market drops, the demand for US dollars drops, and the value of the US currency falls, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, most people consider it bad.
Finally, as with all crisis, if the Federal govn’t has to step in with money and that has to come from some where, ie increased taxes, decreased spending, or increased deficit. Likewise, if the FDA or dept of Agriculture has to be overhaulled, that’s going to cost more federal money, at a time when the Federal govn’t is pushing deficit.
That’s most of the economic impact I can think of at 3am. I don’t really want to venture into the political impacts. I have no doubt the Democrats will be all over this trying to pin it entirely on Bush. And Republicans will probably blame it on terrorism or Canada.
Does this seem a little hypocritic, when BSE has alreaedy been found in Japanese cows? Is there any justification in banning US beef while allowing domestic beef?