You could watch dozens of Canadian cattle trucks rumble south over the border at Pembina, N.D., without thinking about the Golden Rule. But the Rule ought to at least cross your mind, because it explains why the renewed traffic is a good thing.

The Golden Rule asks that we treat others the way we’d like to be treated. In the case of the international cattle trade, that’s exactly what the United States is trying to do. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has recognized Canada as a &uot;minimal risk region&uot; for mad cow disease. Not zero risk, mind you; where mad cow disease is concerned, there’s no such thing as zero risk. The disease could strike in any country at any time.

Instead, minimal risk: The risk of cattle developing mad cow is minimal because of that country’s comprehensive animal-health and testing practices.

By reopening the border to Canadian cattle, the United States is showing that it follows the guidelines of the best available science. We’re saying that if a country enacts tough World Health Organization rules and succeeds in keeping any mad-cow outbreaks isolated and under control, that country’s cattle should be accepted.

And that’s exactly the standard we’re asking Japan and other countries to follow. After all, a cow born in Texas was diagnosed last month with mad cow disease. Do we want other countries to be reasonable or unreasonable now in assessing the safety of the American cattle supply?

Remember something, said Dr. Neil Cashman of the Centre for Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto. It’s true that an outbreak of mad cow disease in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and ’90s may have led to human deaths. But it’s also true that an estimated 2 million infected cattle went into the U.K.’s human food chain during that time.

Mad cow disease is very rare in Canada and very rare in the United States. Both countries have taken serious animal-health steps to keep it that way.

That means the risk to anyone eating contaminated American or Canadian beef is extremely low. Citizens in our countries keep eating hamburgers by the millions because we trust our nations’ food supplies. We believe in the best available science and practice it, as our decision to reopen the border to Canadian cattle shows.

It’s reasonable to expect other countries to adopt that standard, too.

&045; Grand Forks Herald