Today’s breaking news: “a single Holstein on a Washington state farm has tested positive for mad cow disease (search), marking the disease’s first suspected appearance in the United States”.
A big question immediately emerged for this Canadian who happens to in Canada while the story broke: will American beef be banned worldwide as was Canadian beef was earlier this year under very similar circumstances? As the Fox story points out:
Lawmakers are keenly aware that a case of mad cow disease in Canada last May — which officials described as a single, isolated incident — still had devastating economic consequences.“If it’s anything like what happened in Canada, it will be bad. The problem won’t be that people will stop eating meat in the United States; the problem is the exports will be shut down like we did with Canada,” said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.