MAD COW NEWS

Mad cow case tough to crack Federal agriculture officials said Friday that there's a chance that they may never know where the Holstein infected with mad cow disease contracted its illness - something experts said could shake the confidence of beef eaters. Efforts to find and recall 10,400 pounds of potentially infected beef also are going slowly, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials acknowledged. So far none of the meat from the animals slaughtered along with the infected cow Dec. 9 at the Washington slaughterhouse has been located, officials said. USDA officials received unconfirmed reports that some of the meat - ground beef and beef patties - may have reached stores, although probably only in the Northwest, agency spokesman Dan Puzo said...Mad cow could slow bulls prolonged investigation into the origin of the mad cow disease found in one cow in Washington state could eat away at market and consumer confidence, making cattle prices continue their free fall, an industry analyst said Friday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announcement Friday that its investigation into the mad cow case in Washington could take "weeks or months" was "disconcerting," said Rich Nelson, director of research at Allendale Inc., an agricultural research firm in McHenry, Ill. "The market doesn't like uncertainty," Nelson said. "My best guess is that cash cattle prices will reach down to between $70 and $74 (per hundred pounds)." Cow Parts Used in Candles, Soaps Recalled Cow parts - including hooves, bones, fat and innards - are used in everything from hand cream and antifreeze, to poultry feed and gardening soils. In the next tangled phase of the mad cow investigation, federal inspectors are concentrating on byproducts from the tainted Holstein, which might have gone to a half-dozen distributors in the Northwest, said Dalton Hobbs, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Now, it's the secondary parts - the raw material for soil, soaps, candles - that are being recalled...State set to track cattle from Wash Colorado is prepared to act immediately if federal authorities learn that mad cow disease has spread beyond a single dairy cow in Washington state. Agriculture Commissioner Don Ament said Friday that the state is working "full blast" to see how many cattle from Washington came into Colorado and where they went. "In the event something would show up and we need to trace it out, we intend to be ready," Ament said. "We'll have a spreadsheet on where every Washington-state animal has gone." State Veterinarian Wayne Cunningham said Colorado currently is checking into records covering the past two years and is prepared to go back even further if necessary...Risky tissue getting into beef supply, studies show Cattle tissues known to carry the infectious agents behind mad cow disease are making it into the nation's meat supply despite industry and government claims to the contrary. Americans are consuming the tissues in a variety of processed meats, including fast-food hamburgers, taco meat and hot dogs, according to food and health activists who point to several government and academic studies on the matter. Meat industry officials say the high-risk materials - namely the brain and spinal cord - are routinely removed from animals, leaving the rest of the meat safe for consumption. But a 2002 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found "unacceptable" central nervous system residue, including spinal cord tissue, in 35 percent of the meat that ends up in items such as hot dogs, pizza toppings and hamburger...t doesn't like uncertainty," Nelson said. "My best guess is that cash cattle prices will reach down to between $70 and $74 (per hundred pounds)."...2 calves of mad-cow mother quarantined in Wash. state U.S. agriculture officials said Friday that they have quarantined the offspring of a slaughtered Holstein cow that tested positive for mad-cow disease. The action came amid an intensifying search for the stricken cow's origins. The quarantine, which includes herds at two Washington farms, was imposed even though officials said transmission of the disease from mother to calf is considered unlikely. One of two calves is at the same dairy near Mabton, Wash., that was the final home of the diseased Holstein cow, said Dr. Ronald DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian. The other calf is at a bull calf feeding operation in Sunnyside, Wash., DeHaven said...Dean Urges Gov't. Aid for Beef Industry The former governor, whose state has a large dairy cow population, said the Bush administration failed to aggressively set up a tracking system that would allow the government to quickly track the origins of the sick cow, quarantine other animals it came in contact with and assure the marketplace the rest of the meat supply is safe. "What we need in this country is instant traceability," he said. Dean said such a system should have been set up quickly after the mad cow scare that devastated the British beef industry in the mid- to late-1990s. The Bush administration was still devising its plan when the sick cow was slaughtered Dec. 9, and on Friday the government still hadn't determine the infected animal's origins. "This just shows the complete lack of foresight by the Bush administration once again," Dean said. "This is something that easily could be predicted and was predicted." Dean said as a result the beef industry will suffer enormously. Officials said Friday 90 percent of the foreign markets for American beef have been closed off because of the announcement. Asked if he supported a federal economic aid package for the industry, Dean said: "The answer is, yes, of course I do. The question is how much? And we don't know how much yet."...Advanced Meat Recovery machine under scrutiny A slaughterhouse machine that blasts the last bits of flesh off cattle carcasses already relieved of their more recognizable cuts of beef is coming under increased scrutiny as the discovery of mad cow disease in Washington raises questions about the safety of the nation's food supply. The machinery, known as Advanced Meat Recovery, sometimes also strips off spinal cord tissue, which can slip into the food supply unknown to the consumer. A cow's central nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord, are the most likely to contain the misshapen proteins that most scientists believe cause mad cow disease. Those pulpy pieces of tissue fill out any number of processed foods, including hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage and pizza toppings. They're also reduced down to add flavoring to beef bouillon and stock...Mad Cow Issue Hits U.S. Beef Exports Just days after discovering the nation's first case of mad cow disease, the United States has lost nearly all of its beef exports as more than a dozen countries stopped buying American beef as insurance against potential infection. Gregg Doud, an economist for the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said Friday that the United States, at today's market level, stands to lose at least $6 billion a year in exports and falling domestic prices because of the sick cow. "We've lost roughly 90 percent of our export market just in the last three days," Doud said...FDA blasted over past enforcement of feed ban Long before mad cow disease appeared in Washington, the federal government slammed the Food and Drug Administration for failing to adequately enforce feed regulations, a key piece of the nation's firewall against the disease. On Wednesday, the FDA tried to reassure the public by saying it has "vigorously enforced" a 1997 law that bans the use of meat and bone meal from dead ruminants (cows, sheep and goats) in feed for live ruminants. The agency said more than 99 percent of feed operators are now complying with the law. But in January 2002, the General Accounting Office -- Congress' investigative arm -- criticized the FDA for failing to adequately enforce the feed ban. It said the agency had failed to issue warning letters to violators and inspection records were incomplete, inconsistent, inaccurate and untimely. The FDA's records, investigators said, were "so severely flawed" that they shouldn't be used to assess compliance. "FDA has not placed a priority on oversight of the feed ban," the report said...Mad cow disease likely to be costly to U.S. beef industry Though officials haven't yet estimated the financial fallout from the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, the Bush administration told Congress in 2001 that the beef industry could lose $15 billion. Food safety officials had earlier projected that as many as 300,000 cows could be destroyed if the disease spread like it did in Britain, a prospect diminished by safeguards implemented in response to the British experience with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. William D. Hueston, a former Agriculture Department official who directs the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota, said Friday he wouldn't be surprised if up to another two dozen infected cows are found in the United States...Fred Meyer recalls beef The possibility of mad cow disease in the U.S. beef supply struck home in Utah Friday afternoon when Fred Meyer stores asked customers to return recalled ground beef as a precaution. The product had been sold in four western states, including Utah. Fred Meyer officials announced Friday afternoon in a press release, "In response to a voluntary recall by Vern's Moses Lake Meats of raw beef that may have been exposed to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or popularly labeled the "mad cow" disease,) Fred Meyer is asking customers of 75 stores in Oregon, southern Washington, Idaho and Utah to return the following product for full refunds. "The targeted product is Interstate Meat, pre-packaged fresh ground beef patties with approximately one pound of 85 percent lean (15 percent fat) ground beef and a sell-by date of Dec. 25, 2003." Although only eight cases, containing a total of 96 packages of ground beef patties, were subject to this recall, Fred Meyer chose to take a broader recall as a precautionary measure...Mad Cow scare forces auction barn to cancel sale The discovery of the first U.S. case of Mad Cow disease on a farm in Washington state has forced at least one eastern Iowa auction house to cancel their sale of beef cattle. "We don't want to cancel the sale, but it doesn't do any good to have the producers come if there are not a sufficient number of buyers," said Randy Hess, manager of Dyersville Sales Co. "The buyers don't know what to bid for cattle." Some producers, such as Robert Bradley, said he has no idea when he will be able to sell his cattle, or how much they'll bring. "My buyer was here this morning before daylight," Bradley said Wednesday. "He wouldn't even put in a bid."...Expect a price drop in beef, but it may take a few weeks Supermarket beef prices, which have been at record highs, are likely to fall as result of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States. But it could take a few weeks before consumers see those lower prices on high-quality meats at their neighborhood grocery stores, according to economic and agricultural experts. The price of a quality roast or steak -- both in supermarkets and in restaurants -- will drop more than lower-grade cuts of beef such as hamburger, they said. "It will probably be mid-January, maybe three or four weeks, before consumers see an impact," Chris Hurt, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, said yesterday in a telephone interview. A spot check at several Seattle-area supermarkets found beef prices stable over the last few days...Cattle futures plummet on mad cowCattle futures cratered Friday, a manifestation of continuing concerns over the discovery of mad-cow disease in Washington State earlier this week. In the first trading session since the Chicago Mercantile Exchange moved to expand price limits, benchmark contracts for live and feeder cattle both locked in "limit-down" maximum losses for a single session of 3 cents per pound...MSU economists: Cattle prices could drop 15 percent Marsh and MSU economists Gary Brester and Duane Griffith have compared their computer models of the economic impact of BSE and found their estimates closely agree with those put out by the USDA's Livestock Marketing Information Center. Not all of the countries that buy U.S. beef have banned its imports. The economists estimate that a nine percent decrease in exports, which increases domestic beef supply, could translate into a 13-15 percent decline in fed cattle prices. "That would mean we might be facing a decrease of about $12 to $14 per hundredweight over the next few weeks on slaughter steer prices," said Brester...Editorial: Natural concerns should not give way to panic Wondering if the nation's $175-billion beef industry is the new target is understandable. It's even more natural to question whether the single case discovered here will lead to similar devastation caused in Britain, where 60,000 to 80,000 cows were ultimately affected, and 150 people got the disease. The Bush administration insists the answer to both question is no. And until they say otherwise, the nation, and its beef customers, should resist the panic, instead remembering that America has one of the world's safest food supply systems. Standard inspection practices led to the discovery of the case in question and eventually will answer the burning question: How did this cow get infected?...Editorial: Beef bungling With a beef-cow industry that runs 33 million cattle, a third of which are slaughtered annually, the United States has a lot to lose should a consumer-frightening malady like mad-cow disease infect its herds. So caution is warranted, regarding both careful herd inspection and not jumping to conclusions about the extent of this disease. A single Holstein in Washington state has been found to have had the brain-destroying proteins that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In retrospect, just given the size of the herd it would have been surprising if the disease that has tormented Britain, Europe, Japan and Canada since the mid-1980s would not show up in the United States at some point...As Probe of Infected Cow Spreads, So Does Worry Cattle in other states may have eaten the same contaminated feed that infected a Washington state Holstein with mad cow disease, but investigators who want to track the infection to its source are being confounded by the lack of an organized system that would lead them to the herd where the cow was born, officials said yesterday. The lack of a reliable tracking system, and a complex trail of clues, rumors and false leads, mean it could be days or months -- or never -- before all the links are fully explored, officials said. For a nation already jittery about the Holstein, the expanding investigation could spread worry. "The epidemiological investigation becomes a tangled web of different possibilities," said W. Ron DeHaven, deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer at the Agriculture Department. "Some of those do lead back to Canada. Some take us into the state of Washington and other states, as well." For the first time since the mad cow case came to light on Tuesday, DeHaven and other regulators said they are considering strengthening the nation's testing system for mad cow disease, and installing an electronic tracking system that would follow animals from birth to death. They also plan to revisit a controversial USDA policy that allows non-ambulatory animals into the nation's food supply -- the infected Holstein was a "downer" cow -- many food safety advocates and legislative initiatives have unsuccessfully tried to eliminate these animals as a food source...Mad Cow Alerts Began Years Ago For more than three years, consumer groups, members of Congress and scientists have warned of the inadequacy or insufficiency of government efforts to prevent the spread of mad cow disease into the United States. The General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, in 2000 criticized poor enforcement by federal inspectors of a ban on certain types of cattle feed believed to cause the spread of the disease. Sixteen months later it issued a second report making similar criticisms...US mad cow link questioned in Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases Family and friends of American victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the fatal brain disorder sometimes linked to mad cow disease, on Friday questioned whether the wasting illness that killed their loved ones was actually due to eating contaminated U.S. beef. After federal authorities said on Tuesday that a cow in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease, public health experts have been calling for a review of the U.S. Agriculture Department's screening procedures for cattle. But some victim's families have gone further, saying that the human form of the disease may have already hit the United States and that the government has been lax in its testing possible links and enforcing safety standards...Bush Still Eating Beef Despite Scare, Aide Says President Bush, the former governor of the nation's top cattle state, has no plans to stop eating beef despite growing worry about mad cow disease, a White House spokesman said on Friday. "He's continued to eat beef," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with the president to his ranch. The U.S. food supply is safe and public risk from the discovery of the disease is low, McClellan added. The president had had beef "in the last couple of days," McClellan said...