Steps taken to prevent Mad Cow Disease

It’s been in the U.S. headlines, but do Belizeans have to worry about mad cow disease? Belizean officials are taking the “better safe than sorry” approach, implementing a number of preventive measures. Since seventy-five percent of all animal product imports come from the United States, government is temporarily banning all commodities deemed risky, assessing meat products already imported, and quarantining all cattle imported from the U.S. in the last seven years. All meat and bone meal imported from the U.S. will also be traced and examined.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

There are no cases of Mad Cow Disease in Belize, but that does not mean we can become complacent. In fact, the Belize Agricultural Authority and the Public Health Department have stepped up measures to ensure that the food you eat is safe.

Dr. Michael DeShield, Dir., Food Safety Department, BAHA

“We have inspectors who are now going to the slaughtering facilities doing ante-mortem examinations, meaning that they are looking at these animals before they go into the slaughtering facilities to make sure that they are safe. In fact this is how B.S.E. was picked up in the states, it was an ante-mortem examination by an animal health person who was looking at that, we have our inspectors doing that and we also have our inspectors doing meat inspection now and we have a new stamp, a BAHA stamp that we are putting on the meat.”

BAHA’s Director of Food Safety, Dr. Michael DeShield, says inspectors from the Public Health Department conduct retail examinations to make sure that there is a good control from the farm to the table. In addition, BAHA recently conducted a workshop on Food labelling to make sure that the nutritional information that appears on local products are accurate. The participants are learning how to properly analysed the product’s contents.

Dr. Michael DeShield

“How to test food to see what’s in it to give the composition analysis so you can have the nutritional analysis what you see on those products. We will be able to run that and do a profile for you, and we are also looking at nutritional claims and things like that, what people are claiming this is good for that. We are working with the Bureau of Standards with that one here too and with public health.”

If you would like more information contact the BAHA office in Belize City or Belmopan.