Canada says mad cow likely ate contaminated feed
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's most recent case of mad cow disease was most likely caused by contaminated feed, a senior expert at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told Reuters on Tuesday.
An official report into the country's eighth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) since May 2003 said investigators had been unable to trace the animal's farm of origin and therefore could not probe what feed it had eaten.
The animal in question -- a commercial beef cow between eight and 10 years old -- died on August 9 on a farm in northern Alberta.
George Luterbach, a senior veterinarian at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said the animal had been born at around the time when Ottawa banned cattle feed containing rendered protein from cattle and other ruminants.
