It was too late. Even the animal form of the scourge, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), has not yet surfaced in Asia. But the fear has. Consumers are avoiding beef. Government regulators are besieged with worried calls. Thai farmers are outraged. This month Malaysia banned all imports of Thai beef. “We don’t want to take any chances,” editorialized Malaysia’s New Straits Times. No one else in Asia does, either. Vietnam last week ordered that all dairy imports from the EU be certified by the exporting country to be free of mad-cow disease. Japan and China have banned cosmetics that include collagen made of cattle and sheep tissue.
The crisis has caught Thai officials off guard. The Nation, an English-language daily, accused health officials of “negligence” and “burying their head in the sand.” Singapore banned the import of British beef and beef products back in 1996–the day after the British government announced the likely connection between BSE and its human form. Thailand chose only to prohibit the import of animal feed, and even that move may have come too late. “It is probable that some of our cattle were fed with tainted feed that was imported into the country before the ban was imposed,” says Sumolya Kachanapangka, a veterinarian at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. As if that weren’t enough, the Thai Food and Drug Administration recently admitted that some high-risk animal feed was smuggled into the country in 1999.
Thai officials belatedly began reacting to increasing press reports of the spread of BSE throughout Europe. Late last year the government banned the import of beef and beef products from eight European countries where outbreaks have occurred. Last month officials extended the ban to beef imports from five more. Health officials have ordered stores to remove all beef products originating from the 13 countries. This month FDA investigators swooped down on a Bangkok supermarket chain and confiscated supplies of a British-made beef soup concentrate. Thai officials say they have the problem under control. They note that most of the country’s beef imports come from Australia or the United States. But it may be a long time before Thais look at their beef curry the same way again. Many are convinced this was only a dry run for a real outbreak they regard as inevitable.
