WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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A barreling (inaudible) of
the Trans-Canada-Highway

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from all across the Perris (inaudible). They
end up here just outside of Brooks, Alberta,

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here bringing cattle for slaughter.

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On any work day close to
5,000 at least animals

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get turned in to everything from medicinal products
to leather goods, from pet food to cosmetics.

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Most profitable of all, they get
turned in to food for humans.

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[music]

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This is the face of Agro business today,
large, industrialized, highly efficient,

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and totally cost conscious. It\'s the reason we
have some of the cheapest food in the world.

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But there is a cost,

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it is the cost of the animal itself. For we have
taken it\'s been nine natural flatulent vegetarian

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and turn it first in to a cannibal

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and when that didn\'t work, in to a vampire. We have
made its brain and spinal cord in to toxic sites.

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We have managed turn its
feces in to something

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that routinely (inaudible) makes us sick and
occasionally kills us. We have taken on the cow

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and used it as our experiment in
developing the perfect food machine.

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In the process we have created
our very own Frankensteer.

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[music]

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50 years ago, eating a roast beef dinner

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was reserved for special occasions. If what means what\'s good
to me. Yeah, if it\'s the best (inaudible) for a long time.

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50 years ago, beef was a lot more variable,

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a lot tougher, and a lot more expensive.
Good meat, all right.

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50 years ago, we produced beef with a
table in a very different fashion.

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But not that much different

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from what Bob Curs (inaudible) is doing today
on his farm in Chada (inaudible), Ontario.

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Conditions are very like what they
would encounter that in nature,

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but may be even better than
nature, because the animals

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are living in the natural environment here. They eat their natural
diet and they feed themselves and spread their own maneuver.

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[music]

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And look at the diversity of species,

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I can see three or four different species of grasses,
I guess you might say this is heifer heaven.

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When I am on the pasture

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I can feel their pleasure. It\'s their natural
environment, it\'s their natural diet.

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You know this is the life what they were meant for.
The alternative would be to live in a feed lot

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and be fed on a diet, which is not
in their biological heritage.

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For the first six to eight months,

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the biological heritage for all calves except
for the benighted wheel calves (inaudible)

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is to spend their days outside contently chewing
on the grass and sucking their mother\'s milk.

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And then

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for the vast majority beef
calves world suddenly changes.

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What we are doing here is we are taking cattle off
grass, that\'s their natural environment so to speak

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and we are bringing them in to,
in to a stressful situation.

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A lot of times they are pulled of their mothers and
they are taken through stock yards and (inaudible)

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and then brought to a place like this where
they process. They just start breaking down

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and they just get under a little bit of
stress or a lot of stress, you know.

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Rick Paskal (inaudible) runs three feedlots in an
area of Southern Alberta known as Feedlot Alley.

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It\'s sheer that more cattle are
concentrated than anywhere else in Canada.

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Some 40,000 head of cattle out
of the roughly one million

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in Feedlot Alley get process each
year through Rick Paskal\'s Feedlots.

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They spend their days sleeping,

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meandering around the mounts of their dung and most
importantly eating while they are here for only one reason,

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to be fattened for slaughter,
and to do it as quickly

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and as cheaply as possible.

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Grass is the natural source for them but it\'s
not harmful to the animal eating them grains.

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That\'s just the way there are industry has
evolved, you know beef that has grain finished,

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so they have the high degree of marbling,
that\'s what our conservative demands.

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They will be ready for slaughter a year earlier
than the cattle left the graze on grass.

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And one of the reasons is that
they are being fed grain,

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it makes them grow fatter quicker.

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The life of a cow took a
revolutionary turn in the 1950\'s

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of the expansion of small finishing feedlots
in to large scale feeding operations.

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One reason for the expansion
was that grain like barley

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and corn had become cheap to produce,
cheap enough to use as feed for cattle.

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So normally cattle never evolved to consume

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high grain diets, they never would ever consume
that level out in a normal grazing situation.

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You know they would consume a few seed heads (inaudible)
and that from the grass, but never at the concentration

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that they encounter in a feedlot.

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It takes some time to get
cattle to eat grains,

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especially because at first it makes them
sick and that has to be done gradually,

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too much too quickly can lead to disaster.

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The worst nightmare in a feedlot probably be feeding cattle
wrong ration, you know like if we have some inexperienced

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help here instead of feeding a number
one ration that is mostly silage

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feeding them a full feed ration to cattle that are not ready to take
that feed on and of course that\'s going to really upset the (inaudible)

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and it will result in the
death of lot of these cattle.

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There are couple of things that can potentially
kill the cattle when they are fed that green diet.

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One is the condition which we call
Lactic acidosis. In that situation,

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the contractions in the
digestive tracts stops.

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In the winter of 2005, Alberto was a sight
of a horrific example of how feed can kill.

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These cattle had severe acidosis.

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Basically, what acidosis does is it gives them a belly
ache, so that they start drinking a lot of water

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and the starches in the grain
work so fast in their rumen

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that it puts a toxic poison through them.
And when that happens,

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they just turn to mush and liquid
in, they were freezing to death

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\'cause it was also 25, 30 below that night.

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Well, what we shocking to find almost
200 cattle dead because of wrong feed,

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and is perhaps more shocking to discover just
how dependant feedlots across North America

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had become an antibiotics. Relatively small
percent to the diet consists of these pallets,

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and these pallets are where we would
administer the sub therapeutic antibiotic,

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typically in a commercial situation.
These pallets contain antibiotics,

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they are not there to treat sick cattle.
Sub therapeutic antibiotics

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are by enlarge used to prevent disease from
spreading through tightly confined animals

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just as they are used in the industrial pork
and poultry operations of North America.

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In terms of what a sub therapeutic dosage
is that you are including the antibiotic

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in the diet as usually administered in a
diet. You are treating all the animals

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in the herd not just those may become
sick, even animals that are not

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exhibiting signs of disease.

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Most sub therapeutic usage of antibiotics
is a common practice in the feedlots.

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The stress of so many cattle packed
together can still lead to sickness

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and that means even more antibiotics.

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The biggest issue that you have in
feedlot cattle is respiratory issues.

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This is an animal they called
because he is sick (inaudible)

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and he\'s got a high temperature.
They give him a rectal thermometer

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and to find out what their temperature.
Now the temperature is 101 and a half,

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nine to one o two, and they treat accordingly you
know. So you can see he is a little bit of warm

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and he is just fighting of
the infection basically.

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This is…this is about economics and once we got to
figure here, we put 50 dollars in to the animal

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and then we stop treating. You know, so it\'s a, and
they either got to make it or they don\'t make it,

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so you got to call quitcier (inaudible) at some point
of time. In terms of the amount of the antibiotics

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that are used in livestock production, it may
account for as much as 50% of the total tonnage

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(inaudible) of antibiotics
that are used in Canada.

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One of the biggest concerns of what using such
vast quantities of antibiotics on livestock

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is a potential threat this
might have on humans.

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We know that feeding antibiotics resolves
an antibiotic resistance, that\'s a given.

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The bacteria will develop a method to involve
so that the resistant is full antibiotics.

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So the way to approach that is to look at which of those
antibiotics are very important in human medicine,

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so that we don\'t compromise the
potential or value of those antibiotics

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for treating human infections.

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While the Europeans have chosen to ban the use of
sub therapeutic antibiotics for all farm animals.

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Canadian and the American regulators
have opted to continue this practice.

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It\'s a practice that\'s also had
surprising side effect on cattle.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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Feeding cattle with sub therapeutic antibiotics had
an unexpected effect that made them grow faster.

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And so these antibiotics join the
pharmaceutical industries other product

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that trick mother nature
growth promoting hormones.

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They have been around for 40 years or so,

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and basically what they do is
introduce minuscule amounts

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of extra hormones in to beef. What that does
is it enables us to produce those animals

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at several months younger age
and they consume less feeds,

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significantly less feed about 15% less
feed in the process of gaining weight

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in the feed yards.

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The cattle are pumped up like body builders on steroids.
Hormones improve the ability for cattle to make more of

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that valuable muscle and less
of that unprofitable fat.

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Hormones are all about the bottom line. And one
of the more popular of the growth hormones

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is Revalor-H.

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Revalor-H is a combination of two
hormones that are produced as implants

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for implantation under the skin at the
back of the ear in feedlot cattle.

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And the claim is that this is to increase
their way to gain and feed efficiency

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in the feedlot.

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But before Revalor-H could be approved for use in
Canada, as it already was in the United States.

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Health Canada scientists were obliged to look over a
variety of studies conducted on this new drug combination.

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What they discovered worried them.

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In the three studies, there are
reviewed that came out of Europe,

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there is a very very obvious and significant
dose related decrease in the thymus weight.

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Now the significance of the thymus
gland is that\'s very important

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for the maturation of the immune
system in these young animals,

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and this applies to humans as well.
What senior management at Health Canada

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did not share their concerns. And that\'s
one reason why the scientists ended up

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testifying in front of the
Canadian senate hearing.

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I took this matter to Doctor Landry, who is acting
director. I said, \"This is what we are observing.

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There are serious problems that uterus of these (inaudible)
has enlarged that the thymus gland is regressed.

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Now the thymus gland is the main…

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the organ that controls your entire
immunological system, that tells you something.

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And when I took this matter to
Doctor Landry, he said, \" So what,

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they are going to be slaughtered\" I said, \"For
God\'s sake, they are going to be eaten by people\"

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Despite the objections by its own scientists
of Canada (inaudible) has joined the Americans

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in approving the Revalor-H.

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So in this case, those each of those
conscience that were erased by the scientist

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where were investigated by other scientists
revealed. Now, we came to the conclusion

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that the available evidence that we have that
the use of this product will not force on

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(inaudible) to human health and
that\'s why the product was approved.

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The Europeans have taken a different approach
to antibiotics and hormones in their animals.

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Unlike North America, they followed what is known
as a precautionary model in the use of these drugs.

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They have banned the use of all
these growth promoting hormones

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back in about 1988, and they do not allow

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the importation of Canadian
beef in the European union

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because of our use of hormones. The
Europeans had already seen just

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what kind of damage one growth hormone had done back
in the 1970\'s. Dawes laboratories produces DES,

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a chemical used to increase weight
gain in livestock and the chemical

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that grown in number of workers have come to
fear. Some 50 years ago, Diethylstilbestrol,

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better known as DES is one of the first
hormones to be used to fatten cattle.

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By the early 1970\'s, studies
showed that residues of DES

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in meat could cause cancer in humans.

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And it would take almost seven years of legal
battles with the beef and pharmaceutical industries

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before DES was finally taken of the market.
By that time though,

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there was a new hormone available bearing a
strong resemblance to DES, its named estradiol.

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And estradiol is one of the two
compounds that make up Revalor-H.

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One of the six of the hormones
that the European union has banned

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based on the signs at this toughest, this
toxic had causes cancer. It\'s Revalor-H

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and it has estradiol in it, and estradiol

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is a complete carcinogen. It initiates
cancers tumors and it grows those tumors.

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And the population that\'s
most at risk are young girls

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and pregnant women, and it also is known to

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cause breast cancer.

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Further European research published in 2002,
we affirm that European unions contention had

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estradiol was true carcinogen.
American food and drug administration

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and health Canada decide to review
those European research papers.

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We came to the conclusion given all the evidence that we
revealed that the use of that product will not pose a risk.

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The argument centers on how much of
the Hormone remains in the meat.

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This would exceed the maximum residue limit
set by the American and Canadian regulators.

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If something cause cancer, you cannot,

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no scientist can put a
maximum residue limit.

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Because even a single molecule of drug

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or residue can attach to a single cell

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and when it\'s done on a repeated
daily basis in your food,

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then it can generate, it can
stimulate and promote cancer.

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That\'s what Europeans, how they made
decision, we cannot give you a safe limit.

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The Europeans ban Canadian
and American beef.

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They in turn would take in to court by the Americans
and Canadians. We had now managed to turn the cow

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into a weapon in a vicious
battle over trade.

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We went to court and the
European Union asked the WTO

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for Canada\'s risk assessment on
estradiol, on Revalor-H, and the response

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from the government of Canada is, \"Sorry,
our risk assessment in how we determine

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safe levels of estradiol is
secret\" Can we see that report?

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The EU sent… No, your health Canada review
of this report. Can we see it? Is it public?

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Is it open to the public? It\'s
not, it\'s an internal reveal.

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It\'s just something that we reveal,
we work closely with the US on this,

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you know. Because we have conscience, we
also want to, when any publican issues

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are raised, we want to
make sure we investigate

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that if there is any evidence to indicate that
something compulsory (inaudible) risk to pubic health.

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We take it very seriously, so we did our internal
reveal and that\'s the conclusion we came to.

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In June of 2005, the
Health Canada scientists

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are back on parliament held (inaudible) still voicing their
concerns. But this time they are speaking as their employees

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of Canada rather as private
citizens fired by Health Canada

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for insubordination. (inaudible)
are not necessarily appreciated

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even by members of the opposition party.

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There are certain problems within the bureaucracy, within the science
and let\'s have it. And you are not forgetting that there is a…

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We have told you that, we told you that hormones
have been demonstrated in science to cause cancer.

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I am asking you as parliamentarians to
let this information come out to you

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so that you can make your proper decisions.

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As cattle continue to get their hormones and antibiotics,
the scientists continue to argue over the science.

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If the officials are right, then we and
the cattle have nothing to worry about.

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Unfortunately, there have been number
of times that they have been wrong.

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In one case so wrong, that it almost
destroyed the Canadian beef industry.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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Sometime in the 1950\'s, slaughter houses and renders discovered
that they could turn a seemingly worthless part of their operation

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
in to feed full beef, and
especially dairy cattle.

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
You could really increase beef production

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
and milk by dramatically increasing the protein
content to the feed and the easiest way of doing

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
that was to grind up animals.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
It was just one more step in our ongoing experiment
to turn the cow in to the perfect food machine.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
And in the process, we
transformed these herbivores

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
in to cannibals as we started feeding them
meat and bones of their fellow cattle.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
Was not only cows that were ground up, it was
road kill, it was sheep, it was you know,

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
dead pets, so everything went in to the mix

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
and it came out badly
in the United Kingdom.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
In the mid 1980\'s, British cows
began to exhibit bizarre behavior.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
Something strange was eating away at their
brains. They were called spongiform,

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
spongiform encephalopathy, because the appearance
of the brain was literally full of holes

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
like a sponge, instead of full of cells.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Scientists discovered that a rouge protein was to
blame, it was given the name prion (inaudible).

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
Very early on we recognized
that they were transmitted

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
through meat and bone meal. Most
of on it was simply processed

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
by heat to destroy this standard
pathogens like bacteria

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
and viruses, but prion (inaudible)
survived those procedures

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
and the meat and bone meal. It was contaminated with
prions (inaudible) infected more and more cows.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
What was particularly worrisome about prions
(inaudible) was that even after the cows die,

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
the prion (inaudible) survived.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
In standard methods of sterilization
prove totally ineffective.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Europeans looked at this and said,
\"This material is indestructible\"

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
These prions (inaudible) accept unusual circumstances,
put them in a cement kernel at 1100 degrees

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
you can kill them, (inaudible) won\'t
kill them, chemicals won\'t kill them,

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
so we have to be precautionary.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
And there was reason to be concerned, because unlike
similar transmissible spongiform encephalopathy

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
would stay pretty well in a single species,
a scrapy (inaudible) does with sheep.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
The prions (inaudible) in this mad cow disease
exhibited a frightening new attribute.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
And the interesting thing about the
mad cow disease epidemic in the UK

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
is that it showed these prions(inaudible)
can actually jump species,

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
that obviously had public
health implications.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
Suddenly across England, young people started coming
down with a variation of a spongiform encephalopathy

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
that led to a painful to watch death. It was
called Variant ÏCreutzfeldt-Jakob disease,

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
ECGD.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
That took two excruciating years
before Peter Hall (inaudible) succumb

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
to Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
just nine days before his 21st birthday.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
The Variant CJD is a form that\'s
most likely caused by exposure

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
to meat products that were contaminated
with high risk like brain and spinal cord

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
from infected cows with BSE.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
The British and Europeans seem more than a 150
of their citizens die from VCJD, but it stopped

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
the practice of feeding any animal
remains to any in all farm animals.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
Back in 96 and 97, when the world
global debate was going on about

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
abandoning cannibalizing of
animals, because that was seemed,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
deemed to be the method of propagation
of the disease. In North America,

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
the American beef packing industry said, \"Hold
on, we make far too much money rendering

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
in edible awful. We are not going to stop\"

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
North American beef packers and renders lobbied their
governments not to follow the Europeans in their total ban

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
of feeding animals to other animals.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
So they bent, they said okay, we
will just stop feeding cows to cows.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
Because still render down beef product and
feed it to pigs and feed it to chickens,

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
but no more feeding beef to beef.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
My opinion is that it would be best remove this
(inaudible) material from the all animal feed system,

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
because that there could be two
ways that can get back to cattle.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
One is by mistake on the farm that
if you buy a bag of pig feet and

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
that might be fed to the cattle by mistake, then there
is cross contamination. So if this is made in mills

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
for pigs and poultry is our system of flushing
out those high risk materials adequate.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
It would be hard to say that it was adequate to totally remove
if there was infectivity in the system out of the mills.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
[sil.]

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
A newly created bureau, the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency took the lead in enforcing the ban.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
In 1997, when we introduced the
feed ban in place in Canada,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
that particular feed ban did go beyond the
world health organization recommendations.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
It did include other mammalian material, poultry letter,
restaurant waste, other things that other countries did not do.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
No more feeding cattle to cattle
with one glaring exception,

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
the blood from slaughtered cows
could still be used as a type

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
of milk replacer to feed to calves.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
Seven years ago, health Canada
looked at this and said,

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
\"This is bad idea\" and they are the
experts on health risk not (inaudible)

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
and so told their fellow federal
department, you should stop this.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
Despite objections by a few Health Canada scientists,
the Canadian Food Inspection Agency chose

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
to listen to other experts.
What we have done in Canada

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
is to align our programming with the best pure reviewed
international science yet the recognized international body

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
for that is the world organization for
animal health. Under OYE standards,

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
certain products are deemed to be not a risk for BSE
and can be fed safely to animals including blood.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
There is no definitive studies that have shown
at this point and time that blood orally fed

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
to other animals will transmit BSE.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
Well, there might not be any definitive
studies connecting BSE and cattle blood.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
There was very little information with just how many
of the millions of Canadian slaughtered each year

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
quite actually harbor the dreaded disease.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
Historically Canada has never done much testing.
In the 19990\'s, we were on average testing,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
1,000 cattle a year for BSE. So
we had a minimal testing program

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
for the decade that our
herds were most exposed

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
to possible BSE contamination.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has in a last
few years increased the number of tests for BSE,

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
particularly among older cattle.
Even with that increase,

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
it still means that less than 2%, the total
number of cattle slaughtered annually get tested.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
When you start testing more,

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
you find more. Rough guess, you
would have to test may be half

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
to give yourself a reasonable
statistical chance of finding it.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
So we don\'t wanna know, we
just do not want to know.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
What we have attempted to do through the entire
BSE crisis is to inform the public about

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
what we are doing? Why we are doing it? Where
is the science behind what we are doing?

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
Exposing ourselves to international pure review inviting other countries
to come in and asses what we are doing and to be able to work with them

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
to meet their issues. As I said,
every country that has come through

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
has repeatedly said to us, we believe doing the right
thing, we have confident in the safety of your food.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
We want not only your food, we want your
inspection system and hoe you are doing it.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
I don\'t think of any European nation
would look up on Canada system

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
and say geez that\'s what we need. They would
look up on it as a kind of lack of days ago

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
US influenced model that\'s
designed to promote trade

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
but not necessarily produce, say food.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
The argument by both the United States Drug
Administration and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
is that testing for BSE is not the
best way to assure food safety.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
Your best protection is not by
the test for public health,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
the best protection is to remove the high
risk material. So the brain, the spinal cord,

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
or the intestines from the human food chain
and real key is in the slaughter plant

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
to prevent the cross contamination. So
when you are removing these tissues

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
not to contaminate the rest of the
carcass that would go for consumption.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
But what this really means

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
is that these specified risk materials are
treated as this toxic elements within the cow.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
First we gave this poor animal, mad
cow disease, now we label parts of it

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
hazardous waste sites.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
[music]

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:23.000
[sil.]

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:33.000
[music]

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
On May 20th, 2003, North America news broadcast
led with a devastating story from Canada.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
Good evening. It is the last thing
Canada\'s beef industry needs,

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
a confirmed case of so called
mad cow disease has turned up

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
in a single cow in Alberta. Almost
immediately, American border was closed

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
to Canadian cattle. But
within less than four months,

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
Canadian beef was once again crossing that border not
alive on the hook but in boxes full of vacuum packed

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
(inaudible) and chucks, some of the
most profitable of the beef cuts.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
All of our industrial leadership
and all of our politicians

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
at every level of government wanted us to
believe that the good lobbying of the industry

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
and politics got that border
open that was so much bullshit.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
That border opened because the
United States needed beef period.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
They don\'t grow enough beef in the
United States to feed their own country,

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
they need to import beef.
But not jus any beef,

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
because authorities believed that cattle under
30 months are unlikely to test positive for BSE.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
Americans were prepared to
accept young Canadian beef,

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
any thing over 30 months
was counted as problem.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
Most of this older cattle are known as culled
cattle, animals that are no longer productive,

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
unable to produce milk or calf\'s.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
Rick Bonnet (inaudible) and his brothers were
operating several feed lots in central Alberta

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
that held thousands of culled cattle.
BSE coming on May 20th, 2003,

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
was, that was a devastating blow, especially
for us in the cull, cull industry.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
You are sitting on a product that all
of a sudden you can\'t sell to anybody,

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
you can\'t, you couldn\'t give it away.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
And to feed those unwanted cattle, they were
running up a tab of 50,000 dollars a day.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
The smartest thing that we
could have done on May 21st

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
in on site now (inaudible) was to dig
a hole and shoot them and bury them,

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
it would have saved us
about 15 million dollars.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
After over 30 years in business,

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
Rick Bonnet and his brothers would driven out of their
feedlot operations and forced in to bankruptcy.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
Mean while,

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
two biggest packers in all of Canada
were expanding their facilities.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Lake side packers owned and operated
by the American Tyson Corporation

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
and another huge operation in High River owned
by the world\'s largest privately held food

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
can glamour it (inaudible) cargo transform their
operations to accommodate American demands

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
that they slaughter only young cattle.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
There are estimates of these two packers
slaughter anywhere from 65 to 80 percent

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
of all the cattle in Canada. They
run their slaughter operations

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
like any efficient assembly line, the quicker
the line speed, the bigger the profit.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
The process is called a disassembly line.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
The employees disassemble the cow and each
worker stands in one place performing

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
a minute and specific function
over and over and over.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
The line speed is horrific,

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
employees must work very very fast. In fact
I know workers that cut head off of the cow

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
all day long with their right hand
pass it in to their left hand

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
and hang it on a meat hook with their left hand. A cow\'s
head weighing 50 or 60 pounds, it\'s difficult work.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
And one worker might do that eight nine hundred
times a day. CFIA inspectors and veterinarians

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
are supposed to be monitoring these
ever quickening disassembly lines.

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
The problem we are having now a days

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
is that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is
being creative in terms of meeting the demand

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
of those high line speeds by
being creative with formulas.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
What they are doing is creating
a formula where we can minimize

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
the amount of inspection regulators. Following
along with the recent American changes

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
in the food safety regulations, CFIA is now handing
over more and more responsibility for inspection

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
to the company\'s themselves.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
I remember 25 years ago, when I came
to big Canada packers in Toronto,

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
we actually had an inspector who would, who would be on the
finals, the last point where the carcass is to be showered.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
And that inspector\'s responsibility
was to assure that every visible

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
fecal matter could be trimmed off.
Could be, would be,

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
or should be trimmed off. It was their
responsibility and we gave up that task.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
The agency told us that we were not quality
(inaudible) control people for the plant,

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
that plant had to quality control itself, and so they
gave it that responsibility to a company employee.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
Perhaps the greatest food safety
issue for beef packers today

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
is the production of huge
batches of ground beef.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
When we look at the large scale production system that we
employee now were a several thousand animals are slaughtered

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
and that material goes in to hamburger. If we
have one contaminated animal going to that batch,

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
we now have thousands of pounds of hamburger that are
potentially contaminated, which then is distributed across

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
a huge geographical area to a number of
potential people who could become infected.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
Batches of ground beef
contaminated with something called

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
E coli o15787, bacteria that show up in the
feces of cattle have been known to kill

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
especially infants and seniors.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:33.000
[music]

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
[sil.]

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
[music]

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
E.coli o157 is a bacterium that
lives harmoniously within cattle,

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
or for humans it can be deadly.
And it suddenly

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
and quite mysteriously started showing up in the ground
beef coming out of North American slaughter houses

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
in the early 1980\'s.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
And the question you have to ask is, well, where is all this E.coli coming
from? Why are we having E.coli now? 30 years ago we didn\'t have E.coli.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
E.coli in the sense is a man made disease

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
which is rooted in industrial Ïslaughter
houses with fast speed of production

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
where they don\'t clean the carcasses. So they are
passing down the E.coli right on the product

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
wrapping it and putting in the supermarket and you
are bringing it in to your kitchen and it\'s toxic.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
Make sure that before you handle any foods,
you wash your hands with warm soapy water.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
So when you bring the package of ham
burger home from the supermarket,

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
you have top treat it as toxic material. You have
to make sure that you don\'t cross contaminate

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
with any other kitchen
utensils and suddenly

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
don\'t let your children touch the
packaging. And you have to ask yourself,

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
well, what benefit is there for the consumer
to be exposed to this toxic hazards.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
Ground beef contaminated with E.coli o157

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
looks and smells if there
was nothing wrong with it.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
And so there was no warning that a toxin
might lurk in the hamburger patties

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
that (inaudible) seems that was preparing.
(inaudible)

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
I was making hamburger and there
was some blood on the counter.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
I can\'t why (inaudible) that come up beside me,
he touched a drops of blood and then I saw him

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
put his hands in his mouth,
that\'s how he got sick,

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
not by eating meat. It was Sunday when
he touched the contaminated blood

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
and by Thursday, he started to get diarrhea

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
and in the afternoon we realized that he
had blood clots in his toe (inaudible).

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
The blood clots were as big as oranges

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
and that\'s when we saw that there was
nothing but blood in the toilet.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
We immediately left for the hospital.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
Eight year old (inaudible) was soon moved to the intensive
care unit, diagnosed with a life threatening condition

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
known as Hemolytic-uremic Syndrome.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
I knew we were in for a big fight to save
him, because this is a very serious illness

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
and his kidneys have failed and we
know that many other organs can fail

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
consecutive to this, so
we had to dialyze him.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
He had other complications,
his heart was involved.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
He had water on his lungs and he developed
jaundice and he became confused.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
He became very confused. I
was very worried because

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
I knew this was, have a
very bad women (inaudible).

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
I kind of went to thought,
he was going to die.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
He took of his oxygen mask,
asked to us his father

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
and mother to hold them and he said goodbye
to us. He was convinced he was going to die.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
[sil.]

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
But Mark an Twan (inaudible) managed to
survive where so many others didn\'t.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
It\'s a very wicked disease
with late complications.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
You have to follow these
people for at least ten years

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
before we can say, \"You will
be okay\" and even then.

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
It\'s very surprising a drop of blood

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
changed my life.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
The slaughter industry sees Irradiation of ground
beef as one solution to treating the threat

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
of E.coli o157.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
A Irradiation uses high energy gamma
rays r electron beams or x-rays

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
to destroy bacteria from cattle feces that can
contaminate the whole batch of ground beef.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
But there are some recent
scientific studies

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
that raise concerns about the effects
of the Irradiation on the meat itself.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
The principle type of reaction that I
see that\'s detrimental is cross bonding

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
between molecules. We are getting
material that\'s chemically altered

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
by way of the Irradiation is
inducing chemical transformations

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
as well as reducing vitamin (inaudible)
content, nuditive (inaudible) quality

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
and so on, that\'s a very complex thing
and due to sort this out is difficult.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
Obviously, the industry is not willing to put
money in investigating that kind of thing

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
and they are not going to spend a nickel
more than what they have to on anything else

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
unless regulatory people asking to reuse this
(inaudible) and pushing for that and so on.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
Currently, the US permits Irradiation
of its meat, Canada does not.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
However some Canadian officials have joined with the meat packers
of this country in promoting its immediate adoption here.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
I certainly believe irradiation
is legitimate intervention step.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
It would be a very good risk
medication step to be applied.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
In Minnesota, they advocate in their school box lunch
programs. They encourage people to buy irradiated beef.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
The only reason I could see from my
perspectives of it, there from my experience

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
to irradiated food is to just cover up
the mistakes the industry is making.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
If you did the job right, we wouldn\'t have to go through
this or if you want to change the ingredient statement,

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
irradiated feces put on, so let the consumer
know what\'s actually on the product.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
So another words, you are what you eat.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:48.000
[music]

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
People should be aware of where their food
comes from. You know, years and years ago

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
we raised our beef and it was strictly on
grass, and the grass that we raised with oat,

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
any additives or any kind, in
fact we didn\'t have antibiotics.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
Janet Maine (inaudible) is a
fifth generation Albertan.

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
She and her family joined forces
with seven neighboring ranchers

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
working the Eastern slopes
of Canadian Rockies.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
He created a company called Diamond willow
range. They produce certified organic beef.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
Everything they eat is naturally produced,

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
no spray, no fertilizer.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
It\'s sort of a principle you would live by in
some ways, but you want your animals to be free

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
and live their natural life.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
It\'s comforting to think that
you are producing animals

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
that are themselves in as natural
an environment as they can be.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
This is viable as an alternative.
Especially if

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
the interest in the organic
food is out there.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
There are small number of cattle certified

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
as organic in Canada. They are
raised with out antibiotics

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
or growth hormones or any animal
bi-products are chemical pesticides.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
But is that a viable option for the millions of
cattle that are produced annually in the highly

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
industrialized feedlots of this country.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
Could we eliminate antibiotics and hormones tomorrow
and maintain production, and produce cattle.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
Undoubtedly, the answer
to that is yes, we could.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
The producers will produce what the consumer demands,
and that the consumer demands beef fed no antibiotics

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
and they are prepared to pay the differential cost that may
exist between those two systems, the producers will do it.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
Even on of the biggest operators in
the Alberta\'s feedlot alley agrees.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
Accommodate markets with
that would be hormone free,

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
antibiotic free, BSE tested
free, absolutely we can.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
What would that cost? You know 20, 25 dollars a steer
(inaudible) or something, may be might not even cost that much.

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
You know…so the cost, there
would be cost of significance,

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
but for the betterment of industry,

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
I think cost could be well reflected in prices
that we could get out of the market place.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
So at what cost do we go back?

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
And what cost do we undo what we have created?
And what cost do we turn frankensteer

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
at antibiotic dependent hormone laist
(inaudible) carrier of toxic bacteria,

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
back to that flatulent but nine
herbivore that at once was.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:50.000
[music]

00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:00.000
[sil.]