Something has to be done.........And SOON..
The Bush administration has been dragging their feet too long..
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More Tests Animals Suspected of Mad Cow
Wednesday June 30, 2004 12:31 PM
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture Department and the beef industry are awaiting additional tests to determine whether two animals singled out in preliminary screening had mad cow disease.
The department on Tuesday announced an ``inconclusive'' test result on a second animal, indicating the possible presence of the disease. Officials pointed out that the initial test is so sensitive it does not mean new cases have been found.
It was the second such discovery in five days as part of the government's rapid screening program. The only confirmed U.S. case of mad cow - also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE - was discovered in Washington state last December, prompting more sophisticated screening for the disease.
Tissue samples from the animals discovered last Friday and Tuesday were being examined at the USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. Those tests were still pending, although the results of the Friday case could come any day.
``The inconclusive result does not mean we have found another case of BSE in this country,'' John Clifford, deputy administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said in a statement late Tuesday. ``Inconclusive results are a normal component of screening tests.''
Clifford said the carcass involved in Tuesday's screening has been accounted for and none of its meat is in the food supply.
As with the case announced Friday, officials did not disclose the location of the animal, the state it came from or the facility at which it was killed or tested. Follow-up tests could take four to seven days, Clifford said.
The rapid screening test is designed to give a quick early indication that there may be a problem with a particular animal. USDA officials and industry representatives emphasized there is a high chance the laboratory in Ames will not find mad cow in its follow-up tests of tissue from the two carcasses.
In December the lab diagnosed mad cow disease in a Holstein in Washington state. The discovery caused turmoil in the beef industry and prompted some countries such as Japan to refuse to accept U.S. beef.
``USDA remains confident in the safety of the U.S. beef supply,'' said Clifford.
The government has issued rules that bar use of the most potentially dangerous cattle parts, such as brains and spinal cords, from entering the food chain. People who eat products containing the BSE protein can contract a rare but fatal disease similar to BSE, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Under an expanded BSE surveillance program begun after the disease was discovered in Washington state, the government has tested more than 7,000 animals. Clifford said as many as 268,000 animals may be screened as part of the program over the next 12 to 18 months.
The screening effectively identifies tissue that could contain the BSE protein, according to Norman Schwartz, president of Bio-Rad Laboratories, which designed a test used in the rapid screening program.
``Inconclusive results are a normal component of screening tests, which are designed to be extremely sensitive so they will detect any sample that could possibly be positive,'' said Clifford.
But some critics maintain that the screening won't find every case of mad cow.
The USDA surveillance is ``systematically flawed'' and a potential new case ``is only the tip of the iceberg,'' said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a private watchdog group. The system, he said, is ``designed to miss many of the mad cow suspects |
