Mad Cow Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Mad Cow Blog

January 23, 2006

Reuters

Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Alberta - A cow in Canada has tested positive for mad cow disease, officials said on Monday, sparking fears of another crisis in the fragile North American beef industry.

Canada confirmed its fourth home-grown case of the brain-wasting affliction just as the strain on its cattle industry from previous mad-cow-related trade bans had started to ease.

The announcement also came as the U.S. beef industry was trying to persuade Japan, a top export customer, to lift a new halt it slapped on U.S. beef shipments last week.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said a six-year-old Holstein-Hereford cow from a dairy farm in Alberta, the western province that is home to the biggest chunk of the country's cattle industry, had tested positive for mad cow disease.

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January 23, 2006

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

OTTAWA- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) today confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an approximately six-year-old cross-bred cow born and raised in Alberta. No part of the animal entered the human food or animal feed systems.

This finding is not unexpected and was identified through Canadaís national surveillance program, which targets cattle at highest risk of being infected with BSE. The program has tested more than 87,000 animals since Canadaís first BSE case in 2003.

The geographic location and age of this animal are consistent with the three domestic cases previously detected through the national BSE surveillance program and the current understanding of BSE in Canada. The clustering of these cases is examined in the epidemiological report, Canadaís Assessment of the North American BSE Cases Diagnosed from 2003 to 2005 (Part II), which is available on the CFIAís Website.

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January 22, 2006

Globe and Mail

Canadian Press

Ottawa ó Federal agriculture inspectors are looking into the possibility of another case of mad cow disease, a spokesman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Sunday.

"We have an ongoing testing program for BSE and that means from time to time we undertake confirmatory tests when we come up with a suspicious sample," said Mark Van Dusen.

"We are undergoing such testing on a suspicious sample."

Mr. Van Dusen said the animal must go to a Winnipeg lab for final tests. Inspectors should know within 48 hours if they have another case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy on their hands.

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