By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - A British lab provided initial independent confirmation Thursday that the United States has its first case of mad cow disease, U.S. agriculture officials said. Federal investigators labored to trace the path the infected animal took from birth to slaughter.
Scientists at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, told
the Agriculture Department they concur with the reading of tests on the stricken
Holstein cow that led U.S. officials to conclude the animal had the
brain-wasting disease, U.S. officials said.
"We are considering this confirmation," said USDA spokeswoman Alisa Harrison,
adding that the English lab still will conduct its own test using another sample
from the cow's brain. Final test results on the cow from Washington state were
expected by the end of the week, she said.
Professor Steven Edwards, chief of the British lab, said those results
already have been given to USDA. But Edwards refused to disclose whether the
tests show that the animal had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy.
Meanwhile, Harrison said, investigators were working through the holiday to
prevent a potential outbreak of the deadly disease and to calm public fears
about the food supply. Government officials have said there is no threat to food
supply because the cow's brain and spine � the parts most likely to be infected
� were removed before it was sent on for processing. Humans can contract a fatal
variant of mad cow disease by eating infected beef products.
"Even though this is Christmas day, federal officials are working on the
investigation," she said.
The government is trying to find the herd the cow was raised with, since the
cow likely was sickened several years ago from eating feed made partly from an
infected cow. The incubation period in cattle is four to five years, said Dr.
Stephen Sundlof of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news
- web
sites).
Authorities also want to know where the animals were transported and have
narrowed their search to two unidentified livestock markets in Washington state,
where the sick cow could have been purchased.
Government sources told The Associated Press that the cow lived since 2001 at
the Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, Wash., a town 40 miles south of Yakima.
Authorities also were scrambling to find where the meat cut from the animal
was sent. The Agriculture Department already has issued a recall for 10,410
pounds of beef slaughtered Dec. 9 at Vern's Moses Lake Meat Co. in Moses Lake,
Wash.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the recall was an extra precaution.
But the government came under criticism on two fronts. John Stauber, the
author of "Mad Cow U.S.A.," said the U.S. hasn't done enough to keep BSE (news
- web
sites) out of the country.
Cattle get sick by eating feed that contains tissue from the brain and spine
of infected animals. The United States has banned such feed since 1997.
"Here's the problem, the feed ban has been grossly violated by feed mills,"
Stauber said in a telephone interview from his home in Madison, Wis.
In one such case, X-Cel Feeds Inc., of Tacoma, Wash., admitted in a consent
decree in July that it violated FDA regulations designed to prevent the possible
spread of the disease.
Agriculture officials said that only two out of some 1,800 firms are not in
compliance with the ban, a significant improvement since 1997.
Stauber also said he believes the ban is ineffective because it exempts blood
from cattle, which Stauber said could transmit mad-cow type diseases. Government
officials and industry executives have said there is no evidence that animals
can be infected from the blood of other animals.
Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San
Francisco who discovered the proteins that cause mad cow disease, said he warned
Veneman recently that it was "just a matter of time" before the disease was
found in the United States.
He said he told her the United States should immediately start testing every
cow that shows signs of illness and eventually every single cow upon slaughter,
The New York Times reported in Thursday's editions.
Prusiner, a Nobel laureate, told the Times that fast, accurate and
inexpensive tests are available, including one that he has patented through his
university that he says could add 2 or 3 cents a pound to the cost of beef.
The scientist said Veneman is getting poor advice from USDA scientists and
did not seem to share his sense of urgency when he met with her six weeks ago,
after several months of seeking a meeting.
"We have met with many experts in this area, including Dr. Prusiner," Julie
Quick, a spokesman for Veneman told the Times. "We welcome as much scientific
input and insight as we can get on this very important issue. We want to make
sure that our actions are based on the best available science."
While government and cattle industry officials voiced assurances that the
beef on American Christmas holiday tables was safe to eat, the biggest buyers of
U.S. beef around the world slapped bans on imports of the American product.
BSE is caused by a misshapen protein � a prion � that eats holes in a cow's
brain. A total of 153 people worldwide have been reported to have contracted the
human form of the illness, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (news
- web
sites).
___
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