J Baxter
Well-known member
Washington (AP) - A second case of mad cow disease (news) may have turned up in the United States, Agriculture (website/news) Department officials said Thursday.
The officials released few details, saying it would be four to seven days before the possible case could be confirmed.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, attacks an animal's nervous system. People who eat food contaminated with BSE can contract a rare disease that is nearly always fatal, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The possible case comes 11 months after the United States had its first case of mad cow disease. Japan and other countries are still maintaining bans against U.S. beef as the result of the earlier case.
In the only confirmed case, a Canadian-born Holstein was found to have been infected, but just that one case caused Japan and more than three dozen other countries to refuse U.S. beef. That hurt U.S. export sales and the farm economy.
Bush administration officials are now focused on trying to get those bans lifted and with establishing a national identification system for tracking livestock and poultry from birth through the production chain.
Such a system has worried producers who prefer to keep their records confidential or run a voluntary ID clearinghouse that would provide government officials with limited access.
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On the Net:
U.S. Department of Agriculture: http://www.usda.gov
The officials released few details, saying it would be four to seven days before the possible case could be confirmed.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, attacks an animal's nervous system. People who eat food contaminated with BSE can contract a rare disease that is nearly always fatal, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The possible case comes 11 months after the United States had its first case of mad cow disease. Japan and other countries are still maintaining bans against U.S. beef as the result of the earlier case.
In the only confirmed case, a Canadian-born Holstein was found to have been infected, but just that one case caused Japan and more than three dozen other countries to refuse U.S. beef. That hurt U.S. export sales and the farm economy.
Bush administration officials are now focused on trying to get those bans lifted and with establishing a national identification system for tracking livestock and poultry from birth through the production chain.
Such a system has worried producers who prefer to keep their records confidential or run a voluntary ID clearinghouse that would provide government officials with limited access.
---
On the Net:
U.S. Department of Agriculture: http://www.usda.gov
Maybe something else will come along before tomorow so they will shut up about it.
