One of the things that I always say about bioterrorism, whether it’s ourselves at the federal level, folks at the state level, or folks in the private industry, we’ve done many great things, especially since 9/11.
In this day and age when we do so much business in foreign trade, we need the ability to identify trace an animal very quickly, identifying where it came from – where it has been, and where it is at today.
I never would have believed as a candidate for the U.S. Senate that the U.S. government could buy GM without a hearing, with no vote, yes or no. There are billions and billions of dollars at stake here.
When one cow was found with BSE in 2003, many of our trading partners closed their borders to our beef.
There is a certain amount of momentum that is achieved when one country after another reopens their borders.
There is a tremendous amount of support for the approach we have taken, which again is to base our decisions on risk analysis and thoughtful scientific process.
We had Taiwan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Oman open their markets to our beef, and we’re excited about that.