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

ROME, Italy, March 28, 2006 (ENS) - Cases of mad cow disease worldwide are fewer year by year, according to two international agencies that specialize in surveillance of animal health. Cases of the fatal brain-wasting disease formally known as bovine spongiform encepalopathy (BSE), have been declining at the rate of some 50 percent a year over the past three years.

In 2005, just 474 animals died of BSE around the world, compared with 878 in 2004 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Thursday. The agency relies on figures collected by the Paris-based World Animal Health Organization (OIE).

OIE figures also show that 1,646 animals died of the disease in 2003, as compared with a peak of several tens of thousands in 1992.

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March 28, 2006

Reuters

SEOUL - South Korea wants more data from the United States about its latest case of mad-cow disease but Seoul will still stick to its planned resumption of U.S. beef imports, South Korean agriculture officials said on Tuesday.

The agriculture ministry pushed back by a few weeks its planned date to resume imports of U.S. beef to late April or early May after Washington confirmed a new case of mad cow disease earlier this month.

South Korea's agriculture minister told parliament the United States had sent a sparse amount of data to prove the latest outbreak took place in an animal that was born before the United States enacted measures several years ago aimed at stopping infections.

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March 27, 2006

Associated Press

Libby Quaid

WASHINGTON -- Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Monday he wants to persuade Japan to resume U.S. beef shipments before deciding whether to scale back tests for mad cow disease.

Johanns and his staff have indicated they want to reduce the level of testing, which was ramped up after the first case of mad cow disease appeared in the United States.

A decision will not come soon, Johanns told reporters.

"We just haven't been in a hurry," he said during a news conference. "We would like to see if we can get things straightened out with Japan and some of our other trading partners."

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Agence France Presse

PARIS - The final human toll from mad-cow disease could be higher than is conventionally thought because of a potential risk from blood transfusion, a new study says.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) was identified 10 years ago as the human form of mad-cow disease, a fatal disorder in which a rogue prion protein called PrPSc proliferates in the brain, turning it spongy.

The fear then was that vCJD would inflict a nightmarish toll, especially in Britain, where millions of people were exposed to beef from infected cows.

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March 26, 2006

The Birmingham News

Jean Weese

On the issue of so-called mad cow disease, I remain a steadfast cynic - one of a small, but growing number of scientists around the world who doubt that people contract a brain-wasting disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from a similar disease in cattle known as BSE, commonly called mad cow disease.

I should stress that the recent discovery of BSE in an aging Alabama cow hasn't changed my views at all. If anything, what investigators ultimately learn about this cow may reinforce my longstanding suspicion that BSE is the 21st-century version of pellagra, a disease that once was as widely feared as it was misunderstood.

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March 17, 2006

CNN

One of at least two calves born to an Alabama cow with mad cow disease will be tested for evidence of the fatal, brain-wasting disease, the state's agriculture commissioner said Friday.

The cow was at least 10 years old when it was destroyed last week. Its remains have been sent to a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, for testing, Alabama Agriculture and Industries Commissioner Ron Sparks said.

The location of the other calf, which was born in early 2005, is unknown.

The cow posed no risk to consumers, Sparks has said, because meat from it did not enter the human or animal food supply. The 6-week-old calf is in quarantine.

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March 16, 2006
Associated Press
Libby Quaid

WASHINGTON -- After exhuming the Alabama cow with mad cow disease, the government has concluded she was at least 10 years old and could have been infected before steps were taken to safeguard cattle feed, the Agriculture Department said Thursday.

Nine years ago, the United States banned ground-up cattle remains from use in cattle feed. Meat and bone meal from cattle was a common ingredient until it was implicated in a massive mad cow outbreak in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 1990s. The disease was blamed for the deaths of 180,000 cattle and more than 150 people.

Experts checked the Alabama cow's teeth and determined she was 10 or older, the department said Thursday evening. That was the estimate of a local veterinarian.

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WASHINGTON, March 14 - The confirmed third U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a cow on an Alabama farm, poses no health threat to U.S. consumers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief veterinarian.

John Clifford, D.V.M., said that the cow, identified as a non-ambulatory animal, did not enter the food supply. At a press conference, Dr. Clifford said the animal had only resided at the Alabama farm for about a year. His agency is conducting an investigation to determine the cow's exact age and birth or farm origins.

Dr. Clifford said that the USDA had not determined whether the cow might have been imported from Canada.

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"In the United Kingdom, people ate cows sick with mad cow and got Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is ultimately fatal," says Dean Cliver.

Now a routine test picked up the same brain-wasting disease, last week, in a 10-year-old cow in Alabama.

On Monday, more detailed testing at a government lab in Iowa confirmed it.

The state's agriculture commissioner says there's no danger to the food supply.

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WASHINGTON -- Government investigators are tracing the history of an Alabama cow that has become the nation's third case of mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department confirmed the infection Monday, but noted the animal never entered "the human food or animal feed chains."

Word came as the Bush administration sought to reassure Japan, South Korea and other trading partners that U.S. beef is safe.

Federal and state investigators are working to determine where the cow was born and raised and find any offspring.
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They also want to pinpoint its age, which is important because older animals are more likely to have been exposed to contaminated feed.

The U.S. banned ground-up cattle remains from being added to cattle feed in 1987.

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March 13, 2006

USDA Press Release

ìWe received a positive result on a Western blot confirmatory test conducted at the USDA laboratories in Ames, Iowa, on samples from an animal that had tested ìinconclusiveî on a rapid screening test performed on Friday, March 10.

ìThe samples were taken from a non-ambulatory animal on a farm in Alabama. A local private veterinarian euthanized and sampled the animal and sent the samples for further testing, which was conducted at one of our contract diagnostic laboratories at the University of Georgia. The animal was buried on the farm and it did not enter the animal or human food chains.

ìWe are now working with Alabama animal health officials to conduct an epidemiological investigation to gather any further information we can on the herd of origin of this animal. The animal had only resided on the most recent farm in Alabama for less than a year.

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Consumers Union: Third confirmed case underlines urgent need to tighten FDA animal feed rules, improve USDA surveillance

March 13, 2006

U.S. Newswire

YONKERS, N.Y. -- The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) announcement today of a third case of mad cow disease in the United States underlines the need to take additional precautions immediately, says Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. Mad cow disease has already caused 150 deaths in the United Kingdom, apparently from eating tainted beef.

"It's unacceptable that the American public has been waiting for more than two years for the FDA to tighten its animal feed rules," states Jean Halloran, food policy expert at Consumers Union. After the first case of mad cow was discovered in the United States in December 2003, then FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan said that FDA would end the practices of feeding chicken coop floor wastes, restaurant wastes, and cows' blood to cattle, all of which FDA said at the time could potentially transmit the mad cow disease agent. However the agency never followed through.

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March 13, 2006

Reuters

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Canadian officials have not been contacted regarding the possible origin of the U.S. cow that tested positive for mad cow disease Monday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said.

"There's been no request to trace back from U.S. to Canadian authorities yet. It's still early in the investigation," said Mark Van Dusen, a CFIA spokesman.

A beef cow from a herd in Alabama tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture could not confirm the origin of the 10-year-old animal on Monday.

The third U.S. case of mad cow disease within 27 months was not expected to affect trade with Canada, Van Dusen said.

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March 14, 2006

New York Times

Donald G. McNeil Jr.

The nation's third case of mad cow disease has been confirmed on a farm in Alabama, the Agriculture Department announced yesterday.

The animal was killed last week by a private veterinarian after it collapsed, and it was buried on the farm, which the department did not identify.

"It did not enter the animal or human food chains," said Dr. John Clifford, chief veterinary officer for the department.

The cow's teeth suggested that the animal was more than 10 years old, Dr. Clifford said, meaning it was born before the 1997 ban on feed that contained parts from cattle and other ruminant animals.

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WASHINGTON - A cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department confirmed today, the third case in the U.S.

The animal was a beef cow but hadn't entered the food supply for people or animals, said the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford.

A routine test last week had indicated the presence of the disease. Results were confirmed by more detailed testing at a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Clifford said.

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed Monday the third case of mad cow in the U.S.

The department's top veterinarian said a preliminary test detected the infection in the Alabama beef cow last week. Veterinarian John Clifford said more detailed testing at a government lab in Iowa confirmed the findings.

Clifford said the animal never entered the food supply. He said it appears to have been at least 10 years old.

The first U.S. case of the disease was in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state in December 2003. The second case was a Texas-born cow detected last June.

The department is investigating where the Alabama cow was born and raised.

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By Christopher Doering and Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The potential discovery of a third U.S. case of mad cow disease should not hurt beef trade, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said on Monday, even as South Korea said it would block sales if it's confirmed.

"I do not think it will have a negative impact on trade with other countries," Johanns told reporters during a visit to Poland.

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March 12, 2006

Associated Press

Libby Quaid

WASHINGTON -- The Agriculture Department is investigating a possible case of mad cow disease. A routine test indicated the possible presence of mad cow disease, said John Clifford, the agency's chief veterinarian. The agency would not say where the animal was from.

The cow did not enter the human or animal food chain, Clifford said.

The department is conducting more detailed tests at its laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and should have results in four to seven days.

"This inconclusive result does not mean we have found a new case of BSE," Clifford said, giving the abbreviation for the disease's formal name, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

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11:36 AM, 09 Mar 2006
Printer friendly version Print this story
European Union food safety experts agreed on Wednesday to end an export ban that was imposed at the height of the 1990s mad cow crisis.

British beef exports to the European Union were halted in 1996 as brain-wasting Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, spread through the country.

The ban ravaged Britain's beef industry: its last full year of exports was in 1995 when shipments to the EU amounted to 274,000 tonnes, worth STG520 million (US$904.5 million). The main market was France.

One of the EU's main conditions for lifting the ban was for Britain to be able to report fewer than 200 cases of cattle affected with the disease per million adult animals per year.

BSE cases dropped sharply in Britain from a peak of 37,280 in 1992 to 161 in the first 10 months of 2005.

Some 150 people have died from the human form of BSE, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, after eating tainted meat.

The European Parliament now has 30 days to examine the experts' unanimous decision, which also applies to British exports of live cattle and calves to the rest of the EU.

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2006-03-08
by Erik Schelzig
The Associated Press

NASHVILLE -- Tennessee is ``playing Russian roulette'' with mad cow disease until it clamps down on livestock feed regulations, state Rep. Frank Niceley said Tuesday.

The Strawberry Plains Republican is sponsoring a bill that would go beyond federal regulations by banning all feed containing cattle protein or bone meal made from cattle or other ruminant animals such as sheep.

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OTTAWA -- The investigation into Canada's most recent discovery of mad cow disease has wrapped up without finding any other cases, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said yesterday.

After identifying and tracing two of the affected cow's offspring and 156 other cattle born within one year of it on the same north-central Alberta farm, investigators concluded the case was an isolated one.

They looked at several possible sources of infection.

Although an exact source could not be confirmed, the agency said it is likely food was contaminated sometime during manufacture, transport or storage.

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After the first confirmed case of BSE in Sweden, the county is likely to tighten its slaughter regulation. The cost, both for the industry and for consumers, will be high.

Until now, Sweden has been unique among EU countries in that it has been exempt from compulsory testing for mad cow disease. On average, only one in fifteen slaughtered cows in Sweden are currently tested for BSE.

The European Commission is now considering withdrawing that exemption, but no timescale has been set for a decision.

"If there is an increased requirement for testing we will obviously need time to prepare," said Robert ter Horst at the Swedish Board of Agriculture.

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A TEN-YEAR ban on British beef exports to Europe could end next week, Scottish farmers were told yesterday.

Ross Finnie, the rural development minister, said a European Union veterinary committee would almost certainly vote to end the ban, which could mean British beef being back in Continental Europe by April.

The ban was imposed in March 1996 because of fears that the brain infection bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle was linked to a new variant of the fatal human condition, CJD.

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has concluded its investigation into a case of mad cow disease discovered in January and discovered no further occurrences, the federal agency said on Friday.

"No additional cases of the disease were detected during the investigation," it said in a statement.

The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an Alberta cow in January triggered fears of another crisis in the North American beef industry. The agency assured consumers at the time that no part of the animal entered food for human or animal consumption.

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STOCKHOLM, March 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The European Commission and the Swedish Board of Agriculture confirmed Friday that the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, has been detected in Sweden.

The infected animal, a 12-year-old cow from Vaestmanland had been culled because of problems with milking fever, Radio Sweden reported.

Until now only cows that died or were culled on account of a disease have been tested for BSE in Sweden because the country was the only EU country to enjoy a special low-risk BSE status.

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BRUSSELS - The European Commission confirmed that the first case of case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, has been detected in Sweden.

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By Anadolu News Agency (aa), Amsterdam
Published: Friday, March 03, 2006
zaman.com

An eight-year-old cow has been diagnosed with the mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiforme Encephalopathy) in the Netherlands.

Dutch Ministry of Agriculture announced the disease was detected in a farm in the town of Dinkelland in Overijssel province after tests were conducted on a cow already slaughtered.

Mad cow was detected in the other cows at the same farm as well. This is the second case in the Netherlands this year, making the total number of mad cow diseases 82 since 1997.

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February 28, 2006
Agence France Presse

STOCKHOLM - A suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, has been detected in Sweden, officials said on Tuesday.

"A quick test of a 12-year-old cow on a farm in Vaestmanland county (west of Stockholm) has come back positive for BSE," the local county government said in a statement.

Final test results were expected back from a laboratory in Britain within the next two weeks, it added.

No clear cases of mad cow disease have ever been found in Sweden, but between 2001 and 2003, 10 quick tests did indicate that the illness had reached the Scandinavian country. Those test results were all later found to be false.

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