BSE in the United States offers lessons in the intertwined world of food safety, public relations and the inevitability of more onerous traceability.

Editor's note
As devotees to the day's news, to watch an issue like the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States without being able to report it is frustrating. But being a monthly publication puts us in that position. So instead of aiming a monthly story at a day-to-day moving target, we've assembled the following analysis and comment coupled with a detailed look at why and how Japan, our No. 1 beef export market, is using an animal traceability program.

Ice water to the face. That's the kind of wakeup a single incidence of mad cow disease delivers. And so, a turn of events that had been developing quietly for half a decade brings newfound urgency and sharpened perspective to the beef industry. There still will be haggling over how and when an animal identification system will be put in place, but among producers, processors and regulators, inevitability creeps forward.

Meanwhile, after the discovery, an assumed inevitability failed to materialize. We watched the national press carefully, looking for damning headlines. Where we assumed would be "Is this the end for beef?" and other doomsday headlines, we saw "Mad cow discovery limited to one cow," and a general lack of high alarm. Aside from the usual suspects like PETA, reports were subdued. Then, just a couple weeks after the discovery, the quick-service industry, purveyors of thousands of burger franchises, reported that demand hadn't dropped.

One cow, steady demand, a subdued press-some argue that these things are evidence of dodging an immense bullet. The truth is that the USDA and cattle producer organizations were well prepared and acted quickly to mitigate. Groups like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association were quick to disseminate factual information to the media and consumers alike.

Moreover, the USDA already knew the drill. After the 1990s discovery of wide-spread mad cow in the U.K. and the foot-and-mouth debacle there, the USDA tightened its contingency plans for disease outbreak in our national livestock herd. Those plans picked up additional weight after the September 2001 terror attacks.

And while the USDA certainly already had contingency plans in effect for BSE discovery, their involvement in helping with the 2003 Canadian case sharpened the response when mad cow showed up in Washington.

Likewise, the national media had already been on a dry run. While they reported it with all the gusto usually reserved for events north of the 50th parallel (with a yawning by-the-way), they'd gotten the basic facts about BSE into their notebooks. That was important because when the U.S. case popped up, the media had experience. Reporters had reference points that stole drama: Mad cow was huge news in the U.K., but now it's old news; people there still eat beef. Canadian beef production took an economic hit, but trade negotiations with export partners show that sooner or later the business will rebound.

When, with the example of recent events, you take away the lazy reporter's ability to breathlessly predict doomsday, stories tend to lose some of their dramatic flair and actually deliver news. Yet, there's still some deft maneuvering to do for both producer organizations and the USDA.

The USDA has been criticized for allowing downer cattle in the food supply in general. In the past, it has backed its position with scientific observations: that the precautions being taken for BSE would prevent distribution of contaminated meat because the transmissive portions of the animal are diverted from the human food supply anyway.

However, under the weight of the BSE discovery, the USDA reversed that position, with the decree that downers stay out of the food supply coming from Sec. Veneman herself.

That's a problem twice over. First, consumers will ask, "If it was safe before, why have you removed downers from the food supply?" Secondly, and probably more important to the beef industry, is that removing downers from the supply chain weakens the USDA system for disease discovery. If downers are all headed for the tank, and worthlessness, then there is no incentive to send a questionable cow to the market. In fact, there's a disincentive. Producers know the cow isn't worth loading, and if there is a health problem, the farmer fears that the rest of his herd will be subject to "an abundance of caution" that the USDA used in liquidating herds associated with the Washington case of BSE. For better or worse, an old cow may find her way toward a bullet and quick burial rather than slaughter. In response to that mentality, the USDA suggests a bounty system that pays for questionable cows. Good luck.

And that's to say nothing of the healthy 1,200-pound market calf that is injured in transit. As a "downer," it, too, becomes worthless and a significant financial loss to its owner.

Even with questions about how the post-BSE food chain will operate, producers and regulators go forward with some confidence that the system handled this case of BSE well. They shouldn't let that become overconfidence. If there was luck at work in the current state of affairs, it was in the fact that the infected cow was a dairy cow, and Canadian. The dairy industry has an identification system that allowed this one to be traced. Had she been from a beef farm in Missouri or Kansas, who knows how far the paper trail could have been followed? That is the luckless reality of today's market: Be it from the food safety or public relations vantage, there is a perceived need for a national ID system. The day that index cow arrived, "nonambulatory," at a slaughter floor in Washington, perception became reality.