US mad cow case not confirmed

The US Agriculture Department said Saturday that it would conduct further tests on an animal suspected of having mad cow disease before confirming the results, which if positive would indicate the second case of the disease to be found in a cow in the US in the past two years.

Agriculture Mike Johanns confirmed late on Friday that an older animal tested positive for the brain-wasting disease, sparking fears that foreign countries would shun US beef again, at a time when Johanns was making a strong push to reassure export markets that the nation's beef was safe.

Officials the Agriculture Department said Saturday that a series of tests would be carried out on the cow's brain tissue at a department laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and at an internationally known facility in Weybridge, in Britain, to determine if the animal is infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The tests could take up to two weeks, Reuters reported a department spokesman saying.

So far, the department has revealed few details about the origin of the cow. A spokesman said Friday that the animal was first tested in November, and that initial results were inconclusive. Another test was applied, and results were negative.

Then Agriculture Department's inspector general, an independent group within the department, in reviewing the department's mad cow testing program, requested that the cow, along with two other previously suspect animals, be tested again using a different technology, known as "Western blot," that is used in Europe and Japan. The cow tested positive on Friday.

Uncertainty the same cow caused beef prices to dip before, said Bill Bullard, chief executive of R-Calf USA, a cattle group that has been critical of the department's mad cow testing program.

After the department announced that tests on the animal in November were inconclusive, cattle prices fell US$70 per head on animals costing about US$1,000, resulting in US$126 million in losses to the cattle industry over a three-week period, Bullard said.

"This uncertainty causes volatility in the marketplace that is detrimental to US cattle producers," Bullard said. "We need to get to the bottom of this quickly."

Confirmation the animal had mad cow would make it more difficult for Johanns to reopen the border to live cattle from Canada, which he has said was a top priority. The US closed the border after mad cow disease was discovered in a Canadian cow in May 2003. Two additional cases were confirmed in Canada last year.

Johanns to reopen the border in March to cattle younger than 30 months of age. But Bullard's group won an injunction from Montana US District Judge Richard Cebull to keep it closed. A hearing on the injunction is scheduled for July 13 in federal appeals court in San Francisco, and a July 27 trial is set for Cebull's courtroom in Billings, Montana.

Bullard the uncertainty around the latest potential mad cow case "reinforces the need to strengthen, not relax, the current protection measures."

While Europe has struggled with mad cow disease, a fatal neurological ailment with no known cure, the US and Canada have found fewer than a handful of cases. Since 1986, about 180,000 cases of the disease have been found worldwide, most in Europe. Last year, the United Kingdom found 343 cases, and 535 cases were discovered across the rest of the world.

The only confirmed case of mad cow in the US -- found in December 2003 in a Washington dairy cow that had been born in Alberta -- dealt a huge blow to the nation's US$90 billion beef industry. Within days of the discovery, 53 countries banned US beef. The industry has estimated it has lost more than US$4 billion a year since then. About one-third of exports have resumed, but Japan, which represented nearly half of the exports, and South Korea, another top market, have continued to shun US beef.