Another reason why to turn vegetarian: news on mad cow disease

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Again is no secret!

 

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Claudia

 

 

 

U.S. Seeks Source of Mad Cow Infection By LIBBY QUAID, Associated

Press Writer

25 minutes ago

 

 

 

WASHINGTON - The government hopes DNA tests to find the herd where

the cow with mad cow disease came from can lead to the source of the

infection, an Agriculture Department official said Saturday.

 

 

 

The United States confirmed what may be its first homegrown case of

mad cow disease on Friday, seven months after officials first

suspected the animal might be infected.

 

Pinpointing the cow's herd will help track the animal's feed and

explain how it became infected. The only known way the disease

spreads is through feeding infected cattle remains to other cattle,

which the U.S. banned in 1997.

 

" We're pretty confident that we have the herd, but we want to make

sure, " John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian, said in

an interview with The Associated Press. " Testing is being done now

on tissue from cows that may have been herdmates. "

 

The effort is complicated by mistakes made after the animal was

killed. The cow's type of breed was accidentally mislabeled, and its

tissues were mixed with tissues from other cows, Clifford said.

 

Despite the delay in reliable results, the government says the food

safeguards are working well.

 

" The fact that this animal was blocked from entering the food supply

tells us that our safeguards are working exactly as they should, "

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said at a news conference

Friday.

 

Still, the emergence of a native-born case could cast a shadow over

the nation's 96 million cattle, the largest herd in the world.

Taiwan, which imported more than $76 million in U.S. beef in 2003,

announced Saturday it would immediately reimpose its ban on U.S.

beef. Japan, once the largest importer of U.S. beef, still has not

lifted its ban.

 

The only previous U.S. case, confirmed in December 2003, was in a

dairy cow that had been imported from Canada, where three other

cases have been found. Even that 2003 case involving an imported

animal prompted some 50 nations to ban U.S. beef imports.

 

While Johanns would not say where the cow turned up, he said there

was no evidence it was imported.

 

Johanns said the new case was no surprise, given that the department

is testing about 1,000 cattle a day. Since escalating its testing

after the 2003 case, the government has screened about 388,000

animals.

 

An internationally recognized laboratory in Weybridge, England,

confirmed the new case Friday after U.S. tests produced conflicting

results.

 

The animal was a " downer " that could not walk and was delivered to a

rendering plant for animals unfit for human consumption. The

government banned downer cows from the food supply just days after

the 2003 case.

 

The ban on downer cows is one of many safeguards aimed at keeping

the disease from getting into the food or feed supply.

 

Also banned are tissues, including the brain, skull and spinal cord,

from older cows believed to carry the disease. Those materials must

be removed from slaughtered cows older than 30 months because it is

believed that infection levels increase with age.

 

In addition, the U.S. and Canada banned the use of cattle parts in

cattle feed in 1997 following the mad cow disease outbreak in

Britain.

 

Officials have not said how old the infected U.S. cow was but said

it was born before the feed ban.

 

The feed ban has loopholes allowing cattle to be fed poultry litter,

blood and restaurant leftovers, all potential pathways for mad cow

disease.

 

The new case was confirmed after a series of conflicting test

results.

 

The department did initial screening using a " rapid test, " which was

positive. A more detailed immunohistochemistry, or IHC test, was

negative. But the department did not conduct a third round, using

the Western blot, until the department's inspector general, Phyllis

Fong, ordered it to do so two weeks ago. Fong has not explained why

she ordered new tests.

 

Mad cow disease — medically known as bovine spongiform

encephalopathy, or BSE — kills brain cells and leaves spongy

holes behind. A form of the disease in people is variant

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It has been linked to the consumption of

contaminated meat. The disease has killed about 150 people

worldwide, mostly in Britain.