MAD COW DISEASE

Up to 100 more mad cow cases expected

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday a cow that initially tested positive for mad cow disease has come back negative on follow-up testing, but a food industry consultant told United Press International he estimates there could be more than 100 cases of the deadly disorder in the country's herds.

About half of the cases will go undetected and passed on for human consumption, Robert LaBudde, president of Least Cost Formulation Ltd., a food industry consultancy in Virginia Beach, Va., told UPI.

LaBudde, who has served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks there will be many more infected cows detected.

"There is no question that we will be seeing a dozen or more -- possibly 100 or more -- cases of BSE-positive cattle in our national herd," said LaBudde, whose clients include the meat industry.

LaBudde said he bases his prediction on the one positive case detected so far, compared to the number of downers, or at-risk animals, in U.S. herds -- which amounts to about 250,000 by his calculations. That would yield about 68 cases among the at-risk cows, he wrote in a recent article published in Food Safety magazine. In Europe, the number of cases among seemingly healthy animals has been about half that seen in the at-risk cows. So in the U.S. that would yield 34 additional cases, for a total of 102.

Only about half the cases will be detected, however, because many animals will not show any symptoms, LaBudde said. This is based on the experience in Europe, where half the animals that test positive have no outward symptoms of infection, he added....

Gov. Johanns Applauds BSE Testing; Questions Release of Inconclusive

Gov. Mike Johanns learned yesterday afternoon that the results of the first inconclusive bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) test have been confirmed as negative for the disease.

"I commend the USDA for stepping up testing as part of the effort to restore our beef export markets," Gov. Johanns said. "This testing coupled with the additional safety measures reinforce what I already know and American consumers understand ­ that our beef supply is safe."

"With that said, I will also tell you that I am concerned about the market impact of public notification of inconclusive results. I believe there should be immediate public notification in the event that test results are positive for BSE, but I question the wisdom in causing a negative ripple effect of concern over inconclusive results."....

USDA to be open with mad cow results

The Agriculture Department is defending its decision to release results of preliminary tests that raise concern about a possible mad cow disease infection when the initial findings may well be wrong.

The announcement last Friday that a cow carcass had not passed a preliminary screening test for mad cow caused concern on commodity markets, worried consumers and angered some farmers. Assurances by the government that the initial screening was only designed to trigger more sophisticated tests did little to ease the anxiety.

Friday's disclosure raised questions about why the department had decided to announce anything at all, since the initial screening is known to cast a wide net that is bound to include "false positives" that are later discounted.

"USDA wants to be very transparent with this issue," said John Clifford, deputy administrator of the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the USDA's chief veterinarian.

He acknowledged in a conference call with reporters Wednesday that there had been "a lot of discussion" on whether to make public the initial screening results. But, he added, "we realized that information like that may be leaked. And we want to be very open and transparent, and that's why the decision was made to release this type of information."....

Japan May Relax Mad Cow Tests; Move Might Restart Beef Imports

Japan may relax domestic testing procedures for mad cow disease, a government official said in Tokyo. Such a move might hasten resumption of beef imports from the U.S.

``Japan still requires the U.S. assure the safety of beef before resuming imports,'' said Kenji Sakurai, a ministry of agriculture official involved in bilateral talks on the issue. ``But we are reviewing domestic testing procedures, and depending on what we decide, requirements may change.''....