mad cow chronology
July 15, 2005
Broadcast News
Chronology of key events in Canada's mad cow crisis:
May 20, 2003 -- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announces a black Angus northern Alberta cow was found to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. The United States immediately closes its border to Canadian beef and cattle and 33 more countries follow suit.
June 17 -- Federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief announces a beef industry compensation package, cost-shared with provinces, of up to $460 million. A day later, he announces changes to slaughter rules: cattle tissues at high risk to carry BSE -- notably brain and spinal cord -- must be removed at the slaughterhouse for cattle older than 2{ years.
Aug. 8 -- The U-S and Mexico partially lift the ban on some Canadian beef, allowing some beef products but no cattle.
Dec. 23 -- U-S Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announces the first U-S case of mad cow -- a Holstein in Washington state. About 30 countries eventually close their borders to U-S beef. Canada imposes a partial ban.
Jan. 6, 2004 -- DNA tests confirm the Washington state cow came from an Alberta herd.
Jan. 9 -- Bob Speller, the successor to Vanclief as agriculture minister, announces $92 million will be spent over five years to increase mad cow testing.
Feb. 24 -- Statistics Canada reports farm income fell to its lowest level in three years in 2003 due in part to the mad cow crisis.
March 22 -- Prime Minister Paul Martin visits Alberta cattle country to announce an extra $995 million in mad cow aid money, two-thirds of which will go directly to cattle producers.
April 19 -- The U-S government changes import rules and begins accepting more beef products from Canada. It later reaches a deal with R-CALF USA, a protectionist cattle group, to halt imports of Canadian processed beef products.
Aug. 3 -- Meat-packers nearly tripled their profits since the mad cow crisis hit Canada, says a report by Alberta's auditor general.
Nov. 29 -- A report from BMO's economics department says Canadian cattle producers have lost about $5 billion since the crisis began.
Dec. 29 -- The U-S announces plans to reopen the border March 7, 2005, to nearly all Canadian exports of beef and live cattle.
Dec. 30 -- The CFIA announces that preliminary tests show BSE is suspected in a 10-year-old Alberta dairy cow. U-S officials say the news won't change the plan to reopen the border.
Jan. 2, 2005 -- Tests confirm dairy cow has BSE. The American Meat Institute, a packers' lobby, sues U-S Department of Agriculture to remove all restrictions on Canadian beef.
Jan. 11: Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell confirms another case of BSE in Canada, again in an Alberta cow, and likely due to contaminated feed. Officials say no part of the animal has entered the human food or animal feed systems.
Jan. 13 -- Wilhelm Vohs, owner of latest Alberta mad cow, says he used commercial feed sold a year after federal rules banned ruminants in cattle feed.
Jan 14 -- Alberta Premier Ralph Klein says humans would have to eat billions of servings of bovine spinal cords, eyeballs and tonsils to get mad cow disease.
Jan 20 -- New research suggests the proteins that cause BSE can be found in more tissues than previously thought.
Feb. 11 -- The CFIA investigation into the last case of mad cow disease in Canada concludes that feeds manufactured after a national feed ban likely spread the disease.
Feb 25 -- A report by a U-S Agriculture Department technical
team says Canada has a robust inspection program, overall compliance
with the feed ban is good and the feed ban is reducing the risk of
transmission of BSE in the Canadian cattle population.
March 2 -- A U-S judge slams shut the door to live Canadian cattle and expanded beef imports, granting R-CALF's request to postpone reopening the border to cattle.
March 3 -- U-S senators voice fierce resistance to resuming the cattle trade with Canada, voting 52-46 to reject the U-S Agriculture Department's plan to start importing Canadian cattle.
March 7 -- Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba pledge more money to help the beef industry deal with the continued closure of the U-S border to live cattle.
March 10 -- Ottawa kicks in $50 million for a campaign to reclaim and expand markets for Canadian beef.
March 11 -- The National Meatpackers Association files a long-shot emergency appeal with a San Francisco court, trying to overturn a Montana judge's ruling that Canadian beef poses health hazards.
March 17 -- U-S officials announce decision to appeal the court-imposed extension of the border closure as federal judge Richard Cebull sets July 27 for a hearing on whether the border should be permanently shut.
March 29 -- Mitchell announces that Canadian farmers will get $1 billion more in income support.
April 11 -- Canada's cattle producers launch four class-action lawsuits accusing the federal government of negligence on the BSE file, seeking $7 billion in compensation for losses.
April 12 -- A former inspector for the U.S Agriculture Department claims his government is covering up mad cow disease. Lester Friedlander says he was fired from his job as head of inspections at a large meat-packing plant in Philadelphia in 1995 after criticizing what he called unsafe practices.
May 18 -- Agriculture Minister Doug Horner announces that Alberta will require high-tech branding to verify the age of all cattle slaughtered after March 2007.
June 29 -- Washington confirms a case of mad cow in a cow from Texas that was killed in November.
July 13 -- A court in Seattle reserves judgment on an appeal by the U-S Department of Agriculture against a temporary injunction that held up plans to reopen the border to the import of Canadian cattle.
July 14 -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco overturns the ban on Canadian cattle, throwing out a lower court's ruling that imports could spread mad cow disease in the United States.
Hours later, the U-S agriculture secretary responds by reopening the border to live Canadian cattle, effective immediately.
