Wayne Allard: “Questions were raised earlier about the accuracy of dentition; in other words, looking at the eruption of teeth to…”

“Questions were raised earlier about the accuracy of dentition; in other words, looking at the eruption of teeth to identify when the animal is 30 months old. That is pretty exact science. It is very reliable; not to say maybe one or two cows will slip through that are off a month or two. That is why the 30-month period was selected, because this is a disease of slow onset, and when they are under 30 months, we ordinarily do not have to worry about them. Let us suppose somebody has some concerns about an animal that may be infected with BSE coming across a border. What happens is there are certain rules and regulations where one transfers from Canadian regulation over to American regulation. We only have certain points of entry into the United States, and when that animal comes into the United States, it is very adequately marked. They have ear tags and they are branded so that if something should happen to the ear tags, they still have the brand on the animal. The only thing that can happen to that animal is it moves into an approved feedlot, it is isolated in that feedlot, for the purpose of slaughter. So that animal then is processed for slaughter. In the processing procedure, all of the central nervous system tissue--the brain, spinal cord--is discarded. It is not used for consumption. If there is a temperature on that animal, it is not slaughtered.”