Ann Veneman
Ann Veneman
Ann Margaret Venemanwas the Executive Director of UNICEF from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first and only woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF. She served in this position from May 1, 2005. A lawyer by training, Veneman has...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth29 June 1949
CountryUnited States of America
So it's very important that we have an education program for families about how to protect children if they have sick birds around their homes.
Now, the impact on export markets - we export about 10 percent of what we produce, so obviously that will probably have some impact on the market. At this point it's too early to determine how much.
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I also believe that it's the right thing to do, to maintain strong consumer confidence in our food systems. And I believe that the consumer should have strong confidence in our food systems.
Actually, in this instance we do have probably a better tracking system than was the instance in Canada. Because this is a dairy cow, they're all individually tagged.
The demand for beef in Canada remains strong because I think people in America, in North America, know that we have a very strong food safety system and that our food is safe to eat.
I think it's important that, as a matter of course, the brain and spinal column were removed from this cow, and that would be the material that would cause concern in terms of human health. And therefore we're confident in the safety of the food supply.
We've all learned about this disease since it was first discovered several years ago in Europe. And so I think we've learned from the European experience.
We are doing everything we can to protect the food supply. And I can tell you that we're making decisions based upon sound science and good public policy, given the circumstances that we are now in.
We've had risk assessments performed by Harvard University, which said that even if we did have a small number of cases in this country that the likelihood of it spreading or getting into any kind of human health problem is very, very small.
To ensure that children are protected, the abuse and exploitation of children must be brought to light and those who violate children brought to justice.
Its been studied to the point where we know that the impact on humans would be from consuming the most infected parts of the cow; that is, the brain and the spinal cord.
We had a single find of BSE in this country. And we believe that what we're doing is appropriate action taken in an abundance of caution under the circumstances. And I believe it's the right thing to do.
Few things have more impact than nutrition on a child's ability to survive, learn effectively and escape a life of poverty.