Posted on 06/24/2005 3:10:36 PM PDT by neverdem
The Agriculture Department said today that tests conducted on an animal that died in November, suspected of having mad cow disease, had turned out positive, confirming the second case of the disease to be found in the United States in the last two years.
The tests for the brain-wasting disease, clinically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, were conducted at a laboratory in Weybridge, England, after officials at the United States Department of Agriculture were not satisfied with the results of previous tests on the same cow.
These test results could raise fears that foreign countries will shun American beef again, at a time when Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns is making a strong push to reassure export markets that the nation's beef is safe.
Mr. Johanns said in a statement that the cow, whose origins have yet to be determined, had been prevented from entering the food supply.
In announcing the test results, Mr. Johanns also said he was directing scientists from the Department of Agriculture to work with international experts to develop a new testing method that includes performing dual tests in the event of other inconclusive tests.
"We are currently testing nearly 1,000 animals per day" as part of the program to detect mad cow disease, Mr. Johanns said. He added that scientists had performed more than 388,000 total tests. "This is the first confirmed case resulting from our surveillance.
"I am encouraged that our interlocking safeguards are working exactly as intended," he said. "This animal was blocked from entering the food supply because of the firewalls we have in place. Americans have every reason to continue to be confident in the safety of our beef."
Mr. Johanns also said that beginning immediately, if another cow disease screening test results in inconclusive findings, the department would run two kinds...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Personally I think this can become a potential health and economic problem that seems to be rathered poo-pooed by industry and by government.
I've seen a patient with this disease. It wasn't pretty.
Yikes. And, I agree. This could be a ticking time bomb.
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