Federal agriculture minister says CFIA will get to bottom of mad cow case

CALGARY – Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says investigators are narrowing down how an Alberta cow was infected with BSE.

The beef breeding cow was discovered last winter on a farm near Edmonton and was born on a nearby farm.

Another cow born at the same location in 2004 tested positive for mad cow disease in 2010.

A final report by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is expected this summer.

Ritz says investigators are looking for other animals that also might have been infected and any feed supplies that might be the cause.

He said it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“It’s searching out the cohort animals, any feed supplies that might have moved to any other farms or anything like that,” Ritz said Thursday at an event in Calgary.

“That’s the minute needle in several haystacks that takes months to accomplish. CFIA has done this before and they’ll probably do it again.”

The majority of Canada’s trading partners don’t seem too worried about the two cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

“We didn’t see a hiccup at all from Japan … or China and those are phenomenal gains that we’ve seen as they recognize the science and the safety of our food supply.”

An outbreak of BSE in 2003 cost the cattle industry billions of dollars in lost revenue when countries around the world shut the door to Canadian beef.

Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter

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