010341 Senator Suggests Ban on Cattle Imports

Washington - The government should ban all imports of livestock until it can assure the public that there are adequate controls to prevent diseases now ravaging European livestock from reaching the United States, the Senate's top Democrat said.

“We've been fortunate so far, but we should not take the health of our domestic livestock herds for granted,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

He said the Bush administration should appoint a commission to study controls for foot-and-mouth and mad-cow diseases. Daschle also said it was time to require labeling of imported meat, an action long sought by cattle producers in northern Plains states to stem U.S. purchases of Canadian cattle.

“We're continuing to review the situation to ensure that we're keeping the borders free” of the diseases,” Agriculture Department spokesman Kevin Herglotz said.

Chuck Lambert, chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said a moratorium was unnecessary and suggested Daschle's motives were political.

“This is a welcoming call to a new administration from a minority leader,” Lambert said.

Foot-and-mouth disease is not harmful to humans but it spreads so quickly that entire herds and flocks must be destroyed to prevent its spread. The virus also can be spread by human and vehicular traffic.

The United States recently banned the import of British meat products, and travelers who have been in the British countryside are being required to have their footwear disinfected before entering the United States.

The United States already prohibited the import of cattle from Britain and selected European countries because of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It does not spread as easily as foot-and-mouth, but is linked to a similar brain-wasting disease in humans.

Mad cow has never been found in the United States. The last known U.S. outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was in 1929, but the Agriculture Department says an unchecked U.S. epidemic would cost producers billions of dollars in the first year alone.

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