From Reuters:
An animal suspected of having mad cow disease was given a clean bill of health in a second round of sophisticated testing, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Tuesday after cattle prices soared in expectation of the
news.
The $32 billion American cattle industry nervously awaited the USDA test results for five days, fearing a second U.S. case of the brain-wasting disease. John Clifford, deputy administrator for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said on Tuesday that federal scientists conducted two final tests on the animal's brain sample.
The first test completed on Monday was negative. A second finished on Tuesday was also negative, he said. "Negative results from both ... tests make us confident that the animal in question is indeed negative for BSE," Clifford said. The USDA ordered the tests last Thursday after preliminary tests yielded inconclusive results in
an animal sent to slaughter.
The government refused to identify the animal's age, sex or location. Earlier on Tuesday, live cattle futures rose at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange partly on trading floor talk that the confirmatory tests showed the suspect animal was not infected. Cattle futures for December delivery closed up 2.6 cents at 87.25 cents per pound.
Cattle industry officials said they were relieved, but not surprised. "All along, from the beginning, we knew that the screening tests, while very accurate, were going to have some false positives because of the sensitivity of them," said Chandler Keys, vice president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
"It looks like the North American system is robust ... We have no epidemic problem, as the Europeans did," Keys added.
The first confirmed U.S. case of the disease was found last December in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington
State. It halted U.S. annual beef exports of $3.8 billion, although several countries have since resumed purchases.
It also prompted the USDA impose additional safeguards against the disease, including a ban on sick or crippled cattle from being used in human food. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to decide whether it will ban cattle spinal cords and brains from feed for pigs, horses and other animals.
The FDA on Tuesday released a routine report showing that 10 U.S. feed mills and protein blenders did not
fully comply with the agency's 1997 rules to ensure cattle feed is not contaminated with the cattle remains.
The 10 represented 1.7 percent of 578 facilities inspected, the FDA said. Some consumer groups and the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) have demanded the USDA stop announcing inconclusive test results for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name for mad cow isease. "There is no consumer benefit, but there is a major negative impact on the livestock industry when inconclusive BSE test results are announced," said Randy Patterson,LMA.
The USDA has done rapid screening tests on more than 121,000 cattle since June as part of stepped-up efforts to detect mad cow disease. Last summer, the agency announced two other animals tested inconclusive in
screening tests. Both were found free of mad cow disease in confirmatory tests.
An animal suspected of having mad cow disease was given a clean bill of health in a second round of sophisticated testing, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Tuesday after cattle prices soared in expectation of the
news.
The $32 billion American cattle industry nervously awaited the USDA test results for five days, fearing a second U.S. case of the brain-wasting disease. John Clifford, deputy administrator for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said on Tuesday that federal scientists conducted two final tests on the animal's brain sample.
The first test completed on Monday was negative. A second finished on Tuesday was also negative, he said. "Negative results from both ... tests make us confident that the animal in question is indeed negative for BSE," Clifford said. The USDA ordered the tests last Thursday after preliminary tests yielded inconclusive results in
an animal sent to slaughter.
The government refused to identify the animal's age, sex or location. Earlier on Tuesday, live cattle futures rose at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange partly on trading floor talk that the confirmatory tests showed the suspect animal was not infected. Cattle futures for December delivery closed up 2.6 cents at 87.25 cents per pound.
Cattle industry officials said they were relieved, but not surprised. "All along, from the beginning, we knew that the screening tests, while very accurate, were going to have some false positives because of the sensitivity of them," said Chandler Keys, vice president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
"It looks like the North American system is robust ... We have no epidemic problem, as the Europeans did," Keys added.
The first confirmed U.S. case of the disease was found last December in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington
State. It halted U.S. annual beef exports of $3.8 billion, although several countries have since resumed purchases.
It also prompted the USDA impose additional safeguards against the disease, including a ban on sick or crippled cattle from being used in human food. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to decide whether it will ban cattle spinal cords and brains from feed for pigs, horses and other animals.
The FDA on Tuesday released a routine report showing that 10 U.S. feed mills and protein blenders did not
fully comply with the agency's 1997 rules to ensure cattle feed is not contaminated with the cattle remains.
The 10 represented 1.7 percent of 578 facilities inspected, the FDA said. Some consumer groups and the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) have demanded the USDA stop announcing inconclusive test results for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name for mad cow isease. "There is no consumer benefit, but there is a major negative impact on the livestock industry when inconclusive BSE test results are announced," said Randy Patterson,LMA.
The USDA has done rapid screening tests on more than 121,000 cattle since June as part of stepped-up efforts to detect mad cow disease. Last summer, the agency announced two other animals tested inconclusive in
screening tests. Both were found free of mad cow disease in confirmatory tests.
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