Alabama Cow With Mad Cow Born Before Feed Ban - USDA
Date: 20-Mar-06
Country: US
Author: Christopher Doering
The US Agriculture Department also said federal officials located a six-week-old calf that belonged to the infected animal. The calf has been quarantined and moved to USDA's lab in Ames, Iowa, for further observation.
The animal was exhumed and its teeth examined to confirm that it was at least 10 years old.
Jim Rogers, a spokesman with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said "they're going to examine the breed again and look for any identifying marks on it, tags, tattoos." He added, "We want to do it as quickly as we can."
The age of the animal is significant because one of the two major safeguards against mad cow disease -- a ban on using cattle parts in cattle feed -- began in 1997. Scientists say mad cow is spread through infected cattle feed.
The remains of the animal were removed from the Alabama farm on Thursday. A DNA sample will be sent to Ames to confirm it matches with the suspect animal and to locate siblings and offspring during the investigation.
Examination of the carcass was required to confirm the age and breed and determine the origin of birth, USDA said.
Ron DeHaven, head of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday there was no indication the feed ban was ineffective.
"This animal would have been infected as a baby calf nine or 10 years ago. Our efforts are now on tracing that animal back to the herd where it was born," said DeHaven.
The ailing beef cow was originally reported to be a Santa Gertrudis breed. USDA said it now believed the cow was more likely a red crossbred, possibly crossed with a Santa Gertrudis or a similar breed.
Officials confirmed mad cow in the animal on Monday, using the so-called Western blot test. A second confirmatory test that takes more time to complete, called the immunohistochemistry, also came back positive on Wednesday.
Under the system used by USDA, if either of the advanced tests comes back positive, the animal is considered to have mad cow disease, formally named bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
There have been two other cases of mad cow in the United States, the first found in December 2003.
Separately, USDA officials said the department was drawing plans to scale down its mad cow surveillance program, which found two of the three US cases of the disease.
Since June 2004, USDA has tested more than 650,000 head, mostly older and higher-risk cattle, for mad cow disease through its so-called expanded surveillance program. The program initially was expected to run 12 to 18 months.
