Innovation Anthology #213:
What are the lessons to be learned from Canada’s mad cow crisis? That’s a question Dr. Daniel Krewski addressed at the recent prion conference in Edmonton.
Dr. Krewski is an expert in population health risk assessment.
DR. DANIEL KREWSKI: We do not have in Canada a single case of VCJD, the human version of mad cow disease, that we can associate with the consumption of beef contaminated with the BSE agent. So as of this point in time, the risk could be argued to be virtually zero. But, what that argument overlooks is the huge socio-economic impact that BSE has had. We have had in excess of 10 billion dollars in negative economic impacts from the BSE crisis so far. Each of those mad cows is costing us about a billion dollars in adverse effects. On that scale, it’s huge. We would be hard pressed to identify very many risk issues that have had that kind of socio-economic impact in this country.
Dr. Krewski believes this revelation should guide future risk assessment of emerging prion diseases like chronic wasting disease.
Thanks today to THE CANADIAN INSTITUTES FOR HEALTH RESEARCH.
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Program Date: 2009-04-02