MAD COW DISEASE

Kansas lab among five mad cow testing facilities stalled Five of the nation's mad cow testing laboratories - including the one at Kansas State University that will test Kansas and Missouri samples - are still awaiting approval from the Agriculture Department to begin testing, even though staff and equipment are in place. M. Chengappa, director of the diagnostic laboratory at Kansas State University, said Friday his lab has been ready to begin testing mad cow samples for two or three months. "The reason we waited in regard to the extra five labs is we wanted to make certain to competitively bid the tests we were using," said Andrea Morgan, associate deputy administrator of the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Morgan told The Associated Press Friday that it will be another few months before a test is selected for the five laboratories....
Cattle Tracking Tested to Protect Food Federal policy is meeting Western reality on the rangelands of Idaho, where wide-open spaces, technological glitches and bitter cold all are potential obstacles to plans to track livestock and protect the food supply from disease and bioterrorism. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to create a national network that would track, within 48 hours, every contact an infected animal has had in its life. The USDA says such tracking is necessary because it took only a single Holstein infected with mad cow disease last year to lead more than 30 countries to close their borders to U.S. beef....
Changes Aim at Better Mad Cow Testing As the government awaits definitive results in a possible second case of mad cow disease, federal officials are charting new ground in dealing with a jittery public. Little noticed in the anxiety are some Agriculture Department policy changes the past four months. The department now requires two preliminary tests of tissue from a suspect animal, instead of just one, before going public with any announcement. Officials would not say whether there have been any cases of just one inconclusive test. The changes in the rapid testing program ``increase the odds'' of accurate findings, said Michael Hansen, a senior research associate for Consumers Union in Yonkers, N.Y. He estimated the rate of false positives at 1 or slightly more in every 1,000....
Cattle industry eyes best/worst mad cow scenarios If tests next week prove that the United States has its second case of mad cow disease, cattle industry sources are hoping the animal is an old dairy cow from Canada. What the industry does not want is a 20-month-old beef steer or heifer in the heart of cattle country in the central Plains. Should it be an old dairy cow that could mean the animal probably contracted the disease before 1997 and that U.S. safeguards implemented that year are working. Also, by being a dairy cow, it would be outside of the beef herd, and if from Canada, it could be argued the U.S. herd is still free of the disease....
LMA Sees No Benefit From Announcing ‘Inconclusive’ Test Results There is no consumer benefit, but there is a major negative impact on the livestock industry, when inconclusive BSE test results are announced, Livestock Marketing Association President Randy Patterson said. On Thursday, Nov. 18, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it had received an “inconclusive” test result showing an animal had tested positive for mad cow disease (BSE). Almost immediately, Patterson said, LMA members reported consignors withdrawing their cattle from sale; the cattle futures market went limit down on some contracts, although they rebounded somewhat later in the day; and Wall Street saw a decline in the share prices of businesses like McDonalds Corp. and Wendy’s Corp. “Because the suspect animal did not enter the food or feed chain, there is no consumer health concern,” Patterson said Nov. 19. But the announcement Thursday “will cast a pall over the market until confirmatory test results are received, and it could be well into next week before that happens,” he said....
Rancher sentenced to probation for smuggling rodeo bulls A stock contractor was sentenced Friday to a year of probation for twice smuggling rodeo bulls into the United States from Canada, despite a ban prompted by the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Alberta. Gregory Kesler, 59, of Helena, also was fined $200 by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy. Kesler pleaded guilty in July to bringing 23 bulls from his ranch in Canada into the United States by hiding them in a load of horses that crossed the border at the Port of Del Bonita on June 23, 2003. Authorities say Kesler was well-known by inspectors at the crossing northwest of Cut Bank and that he told them the load contained only horses....
Mexico Keeps Eye On US Mad Cow Disease Tests Mexican authorities are keeping watch on U.S. tests for a possible case of mad cow disease, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday. Mexico banned U.S. beef and cattle imports last December when the first, and so far, only, case of BSE emerged in that country, but lifted the prohibition in March of this year. The Agriculture Ministry said in a press release that the safety measures adopted in March, including a continued ban on certain high-risk cow parts such as heads, brains, eyes and spines, remain in effect. The ministry also expressed confidence in the enforcement of U.S. measures to avoid BSE, including a ban on using remains of cattle in diet supplements for livestock, and controls at slaughterhouses....
Consumers Union Says FDA Action Overdue On Mad Cow Risk The U.S. Agriculture Department's announcement that it is evaluating another cow to confirm or deny its infection with mad cow disease underscores the need for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to act now to protect the public and for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to test more cows annually, Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, said today. In January, the FDA promised to make changes in animal feed rules, in the wake of the discovery of the first mad cow case in the U.S. But FDA never followed through. FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan initially announced that the agency would ban cow blood and several other materials that pose risks in terms of transmission of mad cow disease in cattle feed. However, the agency never published the regulations in the Federal Register. In July, the FDA said it was considering broader restrictions, thereby postponing any action even further....