20120402 - Breach of quarantine/Violation de la mise en quarantaine of an ongoing Scrapie investigation

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From: CFIA Webmaster
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To: CFIA-AD_ACIA-MA@WWW.AGR.GC.CA
Subject: 20120402 - Breach of quarantine/Violation de la mise en quarantaine

Le texte français suit le texte anglais.

Breach of Quarantine During Animal Disease Investigation

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is working with provincial police to locate sheep that have been removed from a farm currently under a quarantine order. The sheep were quarantined as part of an ongoing scrapie investigation at a farm in Eastern Ontario.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/eng/1333403826731/1333404034371



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Violation de la mise en quarantaine au cours d’une enquête sur la maladie animale

L’Agence canadienne d’inspection des aliments (ACIA) collabore avec la police provinciale afin de retracer des moutons qui ont été retirés d’une exploitation agricole en violation de l’ordonnance da mise en quarantaine. Les moutons avaient été mis en quarantaine dans le cadre d’une enquête en cours sur la tremblante du mouton dans une ferme de l’Est de l’Ontario.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/fra/1333403826731/1333404034371



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CFIA bowing to Americans: lawyer

Missing sheep

By Mark Hoult QMI Agency

Posted 5 hours ago


If a judgement call must be made over the slaughter of 41 sheep, civil libertarian lawyer Karen Selick argues the call should be in favour of private property rights, in favour of the farmer and in favour of the genetic diversity of the sheep.

Instead, the CFIA is bowing to international regulations, in particular those of the United States, said Selick, said Selick, Canadian Constitution Foundation litigation director, who practises law in Belleville. “They want to do what the U.S. is doing and telling them to do, because the U.S. does not have its borders open to Canadian sheep. So it's about U.S. protectionism.”

But Canadian chief veterinary officer Brian Evans said Jones's sheep are suspected of having scrapie. “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is committed to protecting livestock health, and takes the management of animal diseases very seriously,” he said. “While we recognize that disease control activities can be difficult on producers, the eradication of animal diseases, such as scrapie, is critical to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the sheep industry.”

Small Ruminant Veterinarians of Ontario representative Dr. Paula Menzies said the organization supports the eradication of scrapie. “Although we sympathize with owners of affected flocks, Canada must deal effectively with this disease.”

However, the CFIA offered no comments on why it believes Jones' farm is infected with scrapie or why it decided to slaughter the 41 animals instead of negotiating an alternative solution. In an e-mailed response to questions, CFIA media relations officer Lisa Gauthier would say only that when scrapie is suspected or confirmed on a farm, it is placed under strict quarantine “and all infected and at-risk animals are ordered humanely destroyed and disposed of.” The measures are based on internationally accepted science, she said.

“This particular farm has been under quarantine since late January 2010, when scrapie was first suspected there,” Gauthier added. “Quarantines are necessary to control the spread of the disease.”

Gauthier said that because scrapie is a disease listed by the World Organization for Animal Health “Canada has international and trade obligations to respond to suspected cases.”

The CFIA initiated its National Scrapie Eradication Program in 2005, she said. The program “is supported by the small ruminant industry” and consists of an internationally recognized and science-based approach that involves a national surveillance program to identify as many infection sites as possible, along with the implementation of actions to control scrapie on farms where it has been identified.



http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3525236





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Scrapie-quarantined sheep vanish from Ont. farm

CFIA was coming to destroy rare sheep, farmer's lawyer says
Apr 3, 2012 6:36 AM - 7 comments
TEXT SIZE

By: Staff

Livestock

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Ontario Provincial Police and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are looking for a flock of sheep that has disappeared from a southeastern Ontario farm under quarantine for scrapie.

The CFIA said in a release Monday that the animals in question are "suspected of having scrapie," a federally reportable nerve disease related to BSE in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

The sheep were found to be missing the same day 41 of the "apparently healthy" animals, including 20 pregnant ewes, were scheduled to be destroyed by CFIA order. That's according to an earlier release from Karen Selick, a lawyer for the Calgary-based Canadian Constitution Foundation, representing producer Montana Jones.

Local media show Jones' farm at Trent Hills, about 50 km east of Peterborough, has attracted a number of protesters urging a reprieve for the sheep.

According to a news report Monday from Peterborough TV station CHEX, an unknown party took a number of the sheep from Jones' barn sometime between Sunday evening and Monday morning and left a note saying the animals were in "protective custody."

All of the condemned animals tested by CFIA previously tested negative for scrapie in live biopsies, and none of the animals had shown clinical symptoms of the disease in the 12 years Jones has raised sheep, the foundation previously alleged.

A single sheep Jones sold to an Alberta farm in 2007 was later found to have scrapie, the foundation said, alleging scientists can't accurately determine when or where it acquired the illness.

Jones' farm, the foundation said, has "nevertheless been under quarantine" since January 2009, causing "great financial hardship."

Jones, in the foundation's release last week, described her sheep as Shropshires, an "endangered breed," noting "they're due to have lambs soon so I'm expecting 30 to 40 new babies. If CFIA kills my pregnant mothers, there will be only 107 or so females left in Canada."

Jones said CFIA staff have rejected her proposed "alternative risk-control measures," such as taking 30 sheep for destruction and testing while allowing her to keep back 11 of "the most significant rare breeding stock."

"They have also been refusing to allow a third party tissue test. They plan to take away the only evidence I might have to disprove their results if they claim there is a positive," Jones alleged in the foundation's release. "I have seen the CFIA make numerous errors and am very concerned that their results could be inaccurate."

"The government therefore has a duty not to act arbitrarily or disproportionately, but in our view it is doing both," Selick said in her release.

"We sympathize"

Shropshire breeding animals are classified with livestock conservation group Rare Breeds Canada (RBC) and the Rare Breeds Trust of Australia as being in "critical" low numbers. The U.K.-based Rare Breeds Survival Trust designates Shropshires as a "minority."

Jones is not listed with RBC as a Shropshire breeder. However, RBC livestock chairman Elwood Quinn, a Quebec producer, recently said on the organization's website he hopes "common sense will prevail" in the Jones case.

"While we recognize that disease control activities can be difficult on producers, the eradication of animal diseases, such as scrapie, is critical to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the sheep industry," federal chief veterinary officer Dr. Brian Evans said in CFIA's release.

Quarantine breaches "may put the livestock industry and the economy at risk," CFIA warned, adding that anyone who breaches a quarantine could be subject to prosecution under the federal Health of Animals Act.

Furthermore, any farm or other premises receiving these particular animals may also be subject to a quarantine and "further regulatory action," the agency added.

Scrapie is also a World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)-listed disease, CFIA said, thus the federal government has "international and trade obligations" to respond to any suspected cases.

"Although we sympathize with owners of affected flocks, Canada must deal effectively with this disease," Dr. Paula Menzies of the Small Ruminant Veterinarians of Ontario said in the CFIA release.





http://www.albertafarmexpress.ca/news/scrapie-quarantined-sheep-vanish-from-ont-farm/1001036775/





Saturday, February 27, 2010


FINAL REPORT OF THE TESTING OF THE BELGIAN (VERMONT) SHEEP February 27, 2010


IN SHORT ;

August 15, 2000

OIG case # NY-3399-56 REDACTED, VT

''Enclosed is OIG's notification that they have scheduled an investigation of the following individual. REDACTED is alleged to have provided possibly inaccurate test results involving diseased sheep. However, because the results were determined to be inconclusive, no actual violation was actually committed.''




snip...


PLEASE SEE FULL TEXT HERE ;




http://foiamadsheepmadrivervalley.blogspot.com/2010/02/final-report-of-testing-of-belgian.html





http://foiamadsheepmadrivervalley.blogspot.com/





atypical Nor-98 Scrapie has spread from coast to coast since first recognized in 2007. ...tss





Thursday, March 29, 2012



atypical Nor-98 Scrapie has spread from coast to coast in the USA 2012



NIAA Annual Conference April 11-14, 2011San Antonio, Texas



http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2012/03/atypical-nor-98-scrapie-has-spread-from.html








Wednesday, January 18, 2012


Selection of Distinct Strain Phenotypes in Mice Infected by Ovine Natural Scrapie Isolates Similar to CH1641 Experimental Scrapie

Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology:

February 2012 - Volume 71 - Issue 2 - p 140–147


http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/01/selection-of-distinct-strain-phenotypes.html








Wednesday, February 16, 2011


IN CONFIDENCE


SCRAPIE TRANSMISSION TO CHIMPANZEES


IN CONFIDENCE


http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-confidence-scrapie-transmission-to.html








Sunday, April 18, 2010



SCRAPIE AND ATYPICAL SCRAPIE TRANSMISSION STUDIES A REVIEW 2010


http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2010/04/scrapie-and-atypical-scrapie.html







Monday, April 25, 2011



Experimental Oral Transmission of Atypical Scrapie to Sheep


Volume 17, Number 5-May 2011


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2011/04/experimental-oral-transmission-of.html







Sunday, March 28, 2010



Nor-98 atypical Scrapie, atypical BSE, spontaneous TSE, trade policy, sound science ?


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2010/03/nor-98-atypical-scrapie-atypical-bse.html






Monday, November 30, 2009


USDA AND OIE COLLABORATE TO EXCLUDE ATYPICAL SCRAPIE NOR-98 ANIMAL HEALTH CODE



http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/11/usda-and-oie-collaborate-to-exclude.html







I strenuously urge the USDA and the OIE et al to revoke the exemption of the legal global trading of atypical Nor-98 scrapie TSE. ...TSS





Friday, February 11, 2011



Atypical/Nor98 Scrapie Infectivity in Sheep Peripheral Tissues


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2011/02/atypicalnor98-scrapie-infectivity-in.html






Sunday, March 11, 2012


APHIS Proposes New Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Import Regulations in Line with International Animal Health Standards Proposal Aims to Ensure Health of the U.S. Beef Herd, Assist in Negotiations


http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/03/aphis-proposes-new-bovine-spongiform.html







TSS