MAD COW DISEASE

Cattle Prices Fall Cattle futures fell 2.925 cents, or 3.3 percent, to 85.975 cents a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the biggest one- day decline since March 11. Prices, which fell as much 20 percent after the first case was disclosed Dec. 23, are down about 5 percent from a year ago as rising domestic demand for beef partly offset lost exports. ``The inconclusive result does not mean we have found another case of BSE in this country,'' said Andrea Morgan, the Associate Deputy Administrator of the Agriculture Department's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service. ``Inconclusive results are a normal component of screening tests, which are designed to be extremely sensitive.'' The suspect animal came from a ``high-risk'' group of about 270,000 animals selected for increased surveillance starting in June, Morgan said on a conference call today. Two initial screenings on the sample using rapid tests indicated the possible presence of mad cow disease, she said....
Official: Possible case of mad cow not from Kansas An inconclusive test that has officials concerned about a second possible case of mad cow disease in the United States did not come from a Kansas animal, a state livestock health official said Thursday. U.S. Agriculture Department released few details about the possible new case of mad cow disease and refused to say where the possibly diseased animal was found. However, Kansas Animal Health Commissioner George Teagarden said, "It's not Kansas."....
Officials quell rumors mad cow may be in Wash. The state Department of Agriculture has not been notified about a second possible case of mad cow disease, a spokeswoman for the agency said Thursday. Kate Sandboe, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture, said they had not yet been notified of the recent inconclusive test result. The federal government has said the inconclusive result is a normal part of the screening process. "There's no reason to think it's us," Sandboe said....
Bio-Rad says rapid mad cow test highly accurate Bio-Rad Laboratories said on Thursday its rapid screening tests were highly accurate for finding mad cow disease, but a false positive was possible. Brad Crutchfield, vice president of California-based Bio-Rad, said all seven U.S. laboratories testing for mad cow disease were using its quick tests. "The accuracy of our tests is much greater than 95 percent," Crutchfield told Reuters in an interview. However, he said a false positive was possible. One out of every 240,000 double positive tests was a false positive after more sophisticated testing....
Banned U.S. beef mixed with pork A containership from the United States that docked at Tokyo port last week carried beef despite Japan's ban on U.S. beef imports due to the outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States in December, the farm ministry said Thursday. Quarantine officials of the Animal Quarantine Service found 20 boxes of beef weighing about 310 kilograms along with 586 boxes of pork weighing 6,800 kg when they inspected the ship, which arrived last Saturday from Seattle, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said. All the 20 boxes were labeled "beef," the ministry said....
Newest mad cow scare rattles Texas cattle producers Agriculture and Texas cattle industry officials said Thursday's news of a possible case of mad cow disease could spell major financial problems in the nation's leading cattle producing and exporting state. Kyle Williams, manager of Lubbock Feeders, said he could lose as much as $25 a head in the four to seven days it'll take for results to come back. "If it is positive, it could cost us twice as much or more," said Williams, whose operation fattens up about 70,000 head of cattle a year. Cattle futures prices dropped considerably Thursday, with December's price down $2.70 per 100 pounds, said Jim Gill, marketing director for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo. February's prices were down $2.92 per 100 pounds, he said. Prices had dropped the limit, $3 per 100 pounds, but rebounded slightly before the market's close at 1 p.m. CST....