USDA tested 68 cattle for BSE after Texas mad cow

By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Investigators tested 68 cattle
without finding any more cases of mad cow disease from the
Texas farm that produced the first U.S.-born animal with the
brain-wasting disease, federal records showed on Tuesday.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns scheduled a telephone
news conference on Tuesday afternoon to release “final results”
of the investigation, which also included an attempt to trace
feed eaten by the infected beef cow, a 12-year-old Brahma
crossbreed.

Also at the 1:30 p.m. EDT briefing will be the USDA’s chief
veterinarian and a senior official of the Food and Drug
Administration, which conducted the livestock feed review.

The cream-colored cow was selected for testing when it was
delivered dead to a pet food plant in Waco, Texas, last
November 15. It initially was declared free of mad cow disease
but a new round of tests in June, ordered by the USDA inspector
general, found the cow had bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE), or mad cow disease.

It was the first U.S.-born cow found with BSE and the
second U.S. case overall.

The first was in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state
in December 2003. That cow was imported from Canada.

Always fatal, BSE is believed to be spread among cattle
through consumption of feed that contains material from
infected cattle.

People can contract a human version of the disease by
eating contaminated meats.

As a result of the contradictory results when the cow was
tested, the USDA said it would use the so-called Western blot
test as well as the immunohistochemistry test whenever the
first-round rapid screening tests indicate that more BSE tests
are needed.

According to documents posted on the USDA web site, the
department used DNA testing to identify the carcass of the
infected cow. Parts of the infected cow were stored with
carcasses of four other animals that also were tested for mad
cow.

As part of the investigation, USDA killed and tested for
BSE some 67 head of cattle from the ranch where the infected
cow spent her life.

The USDA also found and tested a “birth cohort” of the cow
but it also was free of mad cow. That animal was located “off
of the farm,” according to the documents.

The USDA documents did not identify the farm where the
infected cow lived. “Until it was culled from the herd, it had
spent its entire life on the same farm,” USDA said on July 1,
based on its owner’s statements.