Another Mad Cow Discovered in the USA

From: Environment News Service

Third Mad Cow Found in the United States

WASHINGTON, DC, March 13, 2006 (ENS) - Mad cow disease has been found in the carcass of a cow from an Alabama farm, the third case of the fatal brain
wasting disease to be detected in a U.S. animal.

The diseased cow did not enter the human or animal food chains, said U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) Chief Veterinary Medical Officer John
Clifford in a statement today.

"We received a positive result on a Western blot confirmatory test conducted
at the USDA laboratories in Ames, Iowa, on samples from an animal that had
tested 'inconclusive' on a rapid screening test performed on Friday, March
10," said Clifford.

"The samples were taken from a non-ambulatory animal on a farm in Alabama,"
Clifford said. "A local private veterinarian euthanized and sampled the
animal and sent the samples for further testing, which was conducted at one
of our contract diagnostic laboratories at the University of Georgia. The
animal was buried on the farm and it did not enter the animal or human food
chains."

USDA Chief Veterinary Medical Officer John Clifford (Photo courtesy USDA)
Formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), mad cow disease
and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), are spread by
prions - abnormally shaped proteins that originate as regular components of
neurological tissues in animals - they are not cellular organisms or
viruses.

BSE spreads from one animal to another by consumption of feed that has been
contaminated by these proteins, such as meat-and-bone meal, that contains
nervous system tissue from an infected animal. The human form of the disease
can be transmitted if a human being eats BSE infected meat, and through
blood transfusions.

Consuming meat from infected cattle has been linked to the deaths of 154
people worldwide from vCJD.

The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is working with
Alabama animal health officials to conduct an epidemiological investigation
to gather more information on the herd of origin of this animal. The animal
had only resided on the most recent farm in Alabama for less than a year.
APHIS officials will be working to locate any offspring and animals born in
the same herd within one year of the affected animal, that might also be
carrying the disease.

Clifford said, "We will also work with Food and Drug Administration
officials to determine any feed history that may be relevant to the
investigation. Experience worldwide has shown us that it is highly unusual
to find BSE in more than one animal in a herd or in an affected animal¹s
offspring. Nevertheless, all animals of interest will be tested for BSE."

"While epidemiological work to determine the animal¹s precise age is just
getting underway and is ongoing, the attending veterinarian has indicated
that, based on dentition, it was an older animal, quite possibly upwards of
10 years of age," Clifford said. "This would indicate that this animal would
have been born prior to the implementation of the Food and Drug
Administration¹s 1997 feed ban.

Alabama cows enjoy a break from the summer heat by standing in the creek.
(Photo courtesy USDA)

"Older animals are more likely to have been exposed to contaminated feed
circulating before the FDA¹s 1997 ban on ruminant-to-ruminant feeding
practices, which scientific research has indicated is the most likely route
for BSE transmission," Clifford said.

The second U.S. case of BSE was detected in November 2004 in an animal born
and raised on a ranch in Texas. About 12 years old at the time of death, it
was born prior to the implementation of the 1997 feed ban. The animal was
dead upon arrival at the packing plant and was then shipped to a pet food
plant where it was sampled for BSE. The pet food plant did not use the
animal in its product, and the carcass was destroyed in November 2004.
The discovery of this third BSE infected animal is likely to throw up a
roadblock in the U.S. effort to reopen foreign markets to U.S. beef that
were closed following the first U.S. detection. In December 2003, BSE was
found in a single cow of Canadian origin found on a dairy farm in Washington
State.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns met in London with Japanese Minister of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shoichi Nakagawa on Friday. Japan had
partially reopened its market to U.S. beef products, but decided to
reinstate its import ban in January because of the first shipment of U.S.
veal which contained intact vertebral column and veal offal - materials
classed as of "high risk" for transmission of BSE.

A February USDA report attributed the mistake to the two meat packing plants
that contributed to the shipment and to USDA inspectors.

Secretary Johanns imposed additional mandatory training for Food Safety and
Inspection Service inspectors to ensure they do not make similar mistakes in
the future.

But some livestock growers say the discovery of another BSE infected animal
on a U.S. farm shows the need for a stronger feed ban.

>From his office in Billings, Montana, Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF USA, the
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, told
ENS, "The U.S. needs to erect substantial barriers to this disease. The USDA
needs to strengthen the feed ban to ensure this disease cannot recycle
within our feed system."

R-CALF USA represents some 18,000 U.S. cattle producers on domestic and
international trade and marketing issues. "The government should allow
private packers to test for BSE," Bullard said.

Normally vegetarian, if cattle are fed nervous system tissue from other
ruminant animals, the infectious prions that cause BSE can be spread from
animal to animal. (Photo courtesy USDA)

The U.S. enhanced surveillance program for mad cow disease that began in
June 2004 is coming to an end, Clifford said. "Since June 2004, all sectors
of the cattle industry have cooperated in this program by submitting samples
from more than 650,000 animals from the highest risk populations and more
than 20,000 from clinically normal, older animals, as part our enhanced BSE
surveillance program," he said.

Only two of these highest risk animals have tested positive for the disease
as part of the enhanced surveillance program, Clifford said.
The enhanced surveillance program has cost about $1 million a week, and on
average, nearly 1,000 high risk cattle a day are tested for BSE.
Bullard says the United States should continue "a robust surveillance
program to see how prevalent the is disease is in our herd, and call upon
our trading partners, especially Canada, to do the same."

Canada has detected three cases of BSE since May 2003. But unlike the United
States, Bullard points out, Canada has detected BSE in younger animals and
animals born more than three years after the 1997 feed ban. "This provides
scientific evidence that BSE has been recycling in the Canadian feed system
as late as 2000," he said.


Clifford told reporters on a conference call today that APHIS would base
maintenance surveillance testing on international guidelines, although no
program has been detailed yet.

"Though the nature and extent of maintenance surveillance has not yet been
finalized," Clifford said, "the incidence of BSE in this country remains
extremely low and our interlocking safeguards are working to protect both
human and animal health and we remain very confident in the safety of U.S.
beef."

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said the United
States needs to put a mandatory BSE reporting program in place and also to
continue its enhanced surveillance program.

"We applaud the farmer who did the right thing by turning over the sick cow
in question to a veterinarian for testing," Hauter said. "But this is still
a voluntary system that must be made mandatory for the sake of public
health. Without a mandatory reporting system, who knows what else is out
there?"

"We urge USDA to continue its heightened surveillance program and to fight
for more money in its 2007 budget for continued testing. As it currently
stands, the fiscal budget for 2007 only provides for 40,000 tests. This is
insufficient," said Hauter. "Mad cow disease will not go away on its own.
The government must admit there¹s a problem and take the necessary steps to
fix the problems and protect all consumers."

Interesting Bill, how your posts ends, and then first thing I read this morning on the internet headlines:

quote:

---

GOVERMENT TO SCALE BACK MAD COW TESTING

---

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060314/ap_on_he_me/mad_cow

With you being a meat inspector...do you think this is eventually going to become a real epidemic?

Tammy,

It takes no effort to see through the USDA's veil that they are going out of their way to NOT do anything about madcow disease. When Japan, one of the US's biggest beef customers, first stopped imports there was a US company ready to test every head of beef slaughtered to meet Japan's requirements, but the USDA said, NO! And since the USDA controls the reagents that do the test, no testing was possible without USDA consent. Why would they do this? They didn't have to do it for US beef, but why should they stop the testing of exports? Japan was willing to pay the higher price. Could it be because they were afraid of finding more positives?

Most countries test every single head of cattle, we test relatively none. The US has an estimated 1 billion head of cattle, yet each year we test only in the thousands, that amounts to about less than 1%, a lot less! (And I work in cattle slaughter and have NEVER tested one head, nor know any other inspector that has).

I am glad it happened again at this time as I have been invited this weekend to preach and have a seminar this weekend in or around Youngstown, Ohio (just SE of Cleveland) at a Great American Meat Out sponsored by a local SDA church. I have already given a radio interview and hope that it will drum up interest, especially now that another case has been found. While this is technically only the third case, fourth in my book, I have a website link around where they have known that madcow has been in the US since 1985 when about 2,000 (or 20,000) mink died from eating old dairy cattle (that alone is the scary part, they were dairy cows, what happened to the milk?). Yet Americans want to remain ignorant of the facts, and a lot of meat eating, or at least lacto-ovo vegetarian, Adventists as well!

Check your email Bill, about that meeting coming up....

Can prions infect milk? Does anyone know?

/Thomas

With BSE having its modern fame from the UK, d'y'all know about Mr Mark Purdey, who challenged the government on the causes of BSE, and preserved his own cattle free of the disease. He maintains a website with his name as the url....

He well nigh showed that insecticide used to curb warbleflies on cattle could do damage in the brain. Further, that a high manganese low copper soil environment in agriculture helped facilitate this harm to the brain. That mineral imbalance was also detected in the vicinity of those who contracted CJD, the human version of the bovine disease.

Both diseases are highly likely linked to mineral deficiencies/imbalances, while phosmet in the insecticide helped produce the condition in cattle. Given the nutritional deficiencies, it's difficult to label BSE/CJD as infectious.

The book Plagues, Pestilences, and the Pursuit of Power highlights these issues and their background.

I am a little hesitant of stating that this disease is as simple as one particular thing. Here in the US, Chronic Wasting Disease (the same disease but in deer) is spreading very rapidly. While I do agree that there could be a multitude of reasons why this disease is turning up now, simple definitions may be misleading.

For those in the NE corner of Ohio, I have been asked to speak at a Great American Meat Out held at the Evergreen SDA church this Sunday (March 19). The church address is 7668 Glenwood Avenus in Boardman, Ohio. If you would like more information, please contact me at the below e-mail address. I will be preaching at the same church on Sabbath.

For those not familiar with me, I am a Meat and Poultry inspector with the US Department of Agriculture, and have been for the last 13 years.

Thomas,

Although they have not been able to isolate prions in milk, there have been cases of lacto-ovo vegetarians getting vCJD (the human form of madcow). Therefore, the case looks like it is pretty good that they are there.

The health key has always been nutrition, while the worst of politics has always been holding power by raising fears. I mean health dangers promoted by politics without scientific backing other than "consensus statements".

An optimum immune system is the beginning not the end of good health, but nutrition helps set it up and continues with it after the end of the beginning.