BSE Test Results Expected Friday

[farmers_son]

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content.asp?contentid=5440

BSE Update: US Officials Expect BSE Test Results As Early As Friday

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Tests to confirm whether a U.S. cow was infected with mad-cow disease should be finished soon, perhaps as early as Friday, government officials said Wednesday.

The tests on brain samples from the cow are being done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and at a U.K. government laboratory.

Danny Matthew, head of mad-cow disease research at the testing laboratory in Weybridge, England, told Dow Jones Newswires on Wednesday that scientists there are on schedule to finish the testing the U.S. asked for by Friday.

U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Ed Loyd said he expects to make results from USDA confirmatory testing public at the same time as the results from England.

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It is my impression that if these tests were negative they would have been made public before now.

[cowman]

hmmm...another Friday announcement? Isn't that convenient?
I wonder if the announcement of a positive would cause much of a ripple anyway? Especially if they slip in that "weak positive" thing?
I suspect we are going to a lot of "spin" on this test...whether positive or negative? And I also suspect nothing much will change?
The R-CALF spin will be especially interesting? No matter what the result, you can bet your bottom dollar they will be calling for a more restrictive border!
I believe it is important for producers here to boycott products from companies that support R-CALF? Refuse to buy Pfizer and Powder River products and let the sellers of these products know exactly why you refuse to buy them. It is insane to help pay for the R-CALF assault on our lives!

[intr3est]

Just a comment on the sponsorship by Pfizer of the RCALF meeting. I was speaking with a rep. yesterday, and after getting in touch with head office and a call to the New York office. I was told that one of their reps. were approached by an rcalf member for sponsorship of a "BBQ", he said sure, without checking with anyone. Pfizer has said they will contact RCALF and pull the sponsorship, so let's hope they do.

[farmers_son]

Just a note about timing of this announcement, assuming it actually happens today. In Alberta we are seven hours behind England. Washington DC is 5 hours behind England. Assuming Weybridge announces the results of the BSE test at closing their time, 5:00 PM this afternoon, Washington will know at Noon their time, or 10:00 AM Alberta time. However the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Live Cattle Futures do not close for another 2 hours after that so the US will likely sit tight on the results of any announcement of their first recognized domestic BSE positive cow until then.

I would expect Agricultural Secretary Mike Johanns to make a breathless announcement that he has just received the results of the BSE test about 10 minutes after the closing of the CME.

As the song goes, it is five o’clock somewhere.

[grassfarmer]

I wonder if this is a new spin being put on the bse positive cow the Americans have?
" ....Richt(senior USDA scientist) said it is too early to tell, but that the samples, on which he worked on both last fall and last week, exhibit "hallmark signs" that it could be atypical, and the result of some sort of sporadic development rather than the result of ingesting infected feed."

Claim their's is a "sporadic case" exonorating them of any wrongdoing in their testing, feeding or regulatory protocols? It would also be a convenient way to differentiate their cases from the "real" Canadian ones.

I wonder what the "hallmark signs" are that could differentiate a positive brain sample that occurred sporadically versus one that occurred as a result of "contaminated" feed?
Given that no-one has ever been able to prove conclusively that BSE can be spread through "contaminated" feed surely that would make it impossible to differentiate between said samples? Without knowing how any particular bse case has ever got "infected" you wouldn't even be able to have a control sample to test their new atypical sample against.