NEWS: Third suspect cow tests negative for Mad Cow - NYT 8/3/05

August 3, 2005

New York Times 8/3/05

Suspect Cow Tests Negative for Mad Cow

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A cow suspected of having mad cow disease has tested

negative for the brain-wasting ailment, the Agriculture Department said

Wednesday.

Testing by the department's laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and the

internationally recognized laboratory in Weybridge, England, came back

negative, said John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian.

''Needless to say, we are very pleased with these results,'' Clifford

said in a statement. ''I do want to emphasize that the most important

protections for human and animal health are our interlocking food-safety

protocols.''

The department ordered additional testing after initial results

indicated the disease may have been present in the cow. Officials called

those results ''non-definitive'' and said they didn't resemble normal

samples in which mad cow disease is present.

The animal had complications while giving birth and died on the farm

where it had lived. Officials have not said where the farm was. The cow

was burned and buried after a local veterinarian removed brain tissue

for testing. The cow died in April, but the veterinarian forgot to send

in the sample until last month.

There have been two confirmed cases of mad cow disease in the United

States. A Texas cow tested positive in June, and a Canadian-born cow in

Washington state tested positive in December 2003. All three animals are

dead. The only way to screen for mad cow disease is to kill an animal

and remove brain tissue for testing.

The brain-wasting disease is formally known as bovine spongiform

encephalopathy, or BSE. The consumption of meat products contaminated

with BSE is linked to about 150 human deaths from a fatal disorder

called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Most of the deaths were in the

Britain, where there was an outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s.

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