Cattle Crisis

Mad Cow Disease - the very mention touched off newspaper headlines and sent a scare throughout Canada and the United States, effectively closing the longest undefended border in the world.

In this careful examination of the science and fears that closed the U.S. border to Canadian beef, a Canadian scientist presents an unwavering condemnation of the politicians and special interest groups fighting to keep the border closed.

Timely, and at times explosive, Dr. Wooding's Cattle Crisis is a call for sanity in a trade dispute in which consumers are the ultimate losers on both sides of the Canada - U.S. border.

Ironically, the author points out, while this border closure has kept American beef prices high, delighting the ranchers, these same high prices are hurting both consumers and meat packers alike, raising speculation as to how long this situation will be tolerated by the American public.

With trade backlogs already closing U.S. slaughter and processing plants, Canada's cattle population growing to record levels, and our international beef trade stifled by nervousness surrounding a much misunderstood disease, losses in both countries are reaching into the hundreds of millions, in fact billions, of dollars.

On top of these revelations, Dr. Wooding details how the sudden onset of this crisis exposed glaring weaknesses in the Canadian beef and meat packing industries, which have caused the government, the meat packers and the cattle lobby to scramble for solutions.