By Sheri Monk

An article published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal in September of 1989 implores the government to consider banning the use of ruminant foodstuffs to animals of any kind. The same article also suggests it would be prudent to ban the inclusion of bovine and ovine brain, spleen and tripe from baby foods, as the United Kingdom had already done. A document from 1992 spelling out the government’s position on the possibility of BSE entering Canada was woefully wrong and contrary to widely held scientific knowledge about the disease. Just two years later, a government risk analysis from 1994 finds the risk of BSE in Canada very high.

A feedban prohibiting ruminant-to-ruminant feeding wasn’t enacted until 1997 and beef brain in baby food wasn’t banned until October of 2003. These are just two of the many arguments Cameron Pallett will likely use when the class action lawsuit against the federal government goes to trial.
Then paper trail is long and myriad and often, confusing. Pallett has been working the case for years, settling with a feed company to fund the class action case against the government. Now, in anticipation of the trial – which could take as long as 10 years to conclude – Pallett is reaching out to producers in an effort to show them how the government failed to protect them from BSE and its resulting incalculable, but devastating effects. He is appealing to ranchers to attend a meeting at Red Deer on March 31 to explain the case, which may result in compensation to cattle producers across Canada.
In order to understand Pallett’s case, a timeline of BSE must be explained.
In 1985, a new seemingly neurological disease was observed in cattle in the United Kingdom. In 1986, it was diagnosed and on July 18, 1988, the British government acted to ban feeding ruminant protein to ruminants. Canada did not act to cease cattle imports from the country until 1990. In the time period which elapsed between 1982 and 1989, 168 animals from the UK were imported into Canada.
In April 1990, Agriculture Canada implemented a monitoring program of the risky imports. But Pallett says it was entirely ineffective. There were no movement controls, no quarantines and the only requirement was that a vet examine the animals once every six months. There was no requirement that producers alert anyone when the animals were sent to slaughter.
“And the problem with that, is you can go from asymptomatic to dead in two weeks. So every six months is a little bit long,” said Pallett, adding the government should have done as Australia did and prohibit any of the animals from going to slaughter, thus preventing the infectious prions from entering the feed chain. Australia has never experienced a case of BSE.
“That’s all they had to do. It’s very simple, very logical, very straightforward and it wasn’t done. They created a monitoring program that was virtually useless. What was the point?” Pallett asked.
A Feb. 28, 1992 position paper written by Maria Koller, a veterinarian with Agriculture Canada, states that BSE would not develop in Canada. Throughout the paper, Koller refers to scrapie as being the cause of the BSE in cattle ­and credits Canada’s low population of sheep, scrapie and sheep rendering for cattle feed as reasons why BSE was not a concern to the government. However, at the time of the position paper, it was widely accepted by science that feeding ruminant to ruminants – and specifically, feeding bovine proteins to bovines – was the likely source of transmission and to that end, the United Kingdom had already instituted a feedban.

Much of the eight-page report contends with how Canada’s low rate of scrapie could not be passed to cattle through the feed rendering system. Koller also says the monitoring program would catch any sick animals and mentions how the disease poses no risk to humans.

She goes on to compare public concern as fantasy and science fiction – despite a published research which fingered feeding bovine meat and bone meal to bovines the most likely culprit.
“In the current environment facts readily become fantasy and then fear,” reads the report.
On page seven, she addresses the feed processing industry’s concerns.
“The issue in Canada, then, is not one of BSE in cattle. Rather, it is one in which the rendering industry, as it seeks to preserve and expand markets for meat and bone meal, may cease its recycling of sheep offal.”
To address the concern, the government reaffirmed its commitment to continue feeding animal protein to animals in feed.
“A consensus was reached to proceed in a direction that would see the continued rendering of sheep offal from government inspected facilities and the continued use of animal proteins in animal feeds,” says the report.
Finally, the report summarizes Canada’s position on BSE.
“BSE does not exist in Canada. BSE will not enter Canada. BSE will not develop in Canada.”
On Nov. 21, 1993, an Alberta rancher observed a downer cow and thought she had broken a hind leg. He quickly returned with his .22, but she wasn’t as easy to take care of as he expected. The veterinarian’s report paints a scene of a sudden and horrific realization – BSE was in Canada.
“Several shots to the head did not stun her. She got up, with no evidence of a broken leg. The lead therapy made her very angry,” says the report.
It was then the rancher realized he was dealing with one of his imported animals. He called the veterinarian and the animal was finally put down with three larger rifle shots to the chest area.
The CFIA website tells a similar tale, but neglects to mention that one of her sisters had already made it through the slaughter and rendering process.
“They looked around and said, ‘Where’s the rest of them?’ And there were eight of those animals that were imported from England at the same time as a group and they were all handfed the same calf starter on the same farm,” explained Pallett. “If you’re going to look for BSE in another cow, statistically, the most likely one would be one of the seven remaining birth cohorts. And they looked around and went ‘oops,’ and then didn’t do anything about it.”
It can take as little as 1/1000 of a gram of infectious agent to cause BSE. Prions are not a bacteria or a virus, but an abnormally-shaped protein that replicated by converting other proteins into the abnormal shape. Pallett says 68 head of U.K. imports made it to routine slaughter.
Despite the ineffectiveness of the monitoring program from preventing the imports from entering the feed chain, the government did not enact a feedban until 1997. In 1996, it was learned ingesting cattle prions could be fatal to humans, causing a similar disease called Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).
Pallett is hopeful officials – such as Canada’s agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz – will now take notice of the case, which has been granted clearance by the Supreme Court of Canada to go forward. He believes the best result for producers and all of Canada is an out-of-court settlement.
“We’re alleging breathtaking negligence, gross negligence. I’m not going to hold anything back at trial. As a lifelong, to the bone, dyed in the wool Canadian patriot, I would like to see it settled because I don’t want to embarrass the country. I don’t want the world going, ‘Oh my God, they really did that?’ Quite frankly, I don’t. But when it comes to trial, I’ll do my job and you better believe it.”
Pallett says had a feedban been enacted earlier, BSE in Canada’s mother herd could have been entirely prevented.
“When they brought in the feedban which they brought in to harmonize with the United States back in the fall of 1997, they brought in the 1988 British mode, which the British realized had lots of holes in it and they had upgraded and their latest version was the March 1996 version. So a year and a half earlier, they brought in a feedban which works. Now when did we bring in that version? July 2007,” Pallett stated.
A 1994 animal health risk analysis prepared by Canada’s Animal, Plant and Food Risk Analysis Network was obtained by Pallett through the Access to Information Privacy Act. In it, the research reveals the chances of BSE development as a result of cattle imports from the United Kingdom.
“May 20, 2003 would never have happened had they banned ruminant meat and bone meal in a timely manner – say in February of 1994, which they had the ability to do. For three years, they sat on their thumbs and the disaster happened.”
For more information on the lawsuit, visit www.bseclassaction.ca. Pallett’s informational session will take place at high noon at the Stockmen’s Pavillion, Westerner Park in Red Deer or March 31. All are welcome and encouraged to attend.