Federal officials scrambled to trace the life of the first US cow believed infected with mad cow disease while trying to contain the growing economic damage from a now-suspect food supply.
"The risk to human life is extremely low," Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Wednesday, even as country after country slapped import bans on American beef.
On Wall Street, stocks in meatpacking companies and restaurant chains took a hit. Among the losers: McDonald's Corp, Wendy's International and Tyson Foods.
US beef exports totaled US$2.6 billion last year, with Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Hong Kong the biggest importers. They all have banned US beef, along with at least seven other countries.
Federal and state-level officials worked to trace the diseased Holstein's history until it arrived at Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, Washington, in 2001. Agriculture Department chief veterinarian Ron DeHaven said officials have identified two livestock markets in Washington where the animal could have been purchased.
Because the brain-wasting disease is usually transmitted through contaminated feed and has an incubation period of four to five years, it is "important to focus on the feed where she was born," DeHaven said.
"Once we have the birth herd, we'll want to know what animals have come into that herd and what animals have left that herd and all the feeding practices for that herd," DeHaven said.
The human form of the disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, is thought to be contracted by eating meat from an infected animal, specifically from the brain or spinal cord. Officials stressed that these parts of the sick cow were removed before the rest of the carcass was sent to processing plants.
Agriculture Department officials told a briefing the cow was culled from its herd and slaughtered Dec. 9, after she became paralyzed, apparently as a result of calving. Preliminary tests showed the cow, believed to be about 5 years old, had mad cow disease.
Tissue samples were sent to Britain's Veterinary Laboratories Agencies, a world leader in mad cow identification, for confirmation.
"We should have a result within a few hours of the initial test," said Steven Edwards, chief executive of the lab in Weybridge, near London.
BSE was first identified in 1986 in Britain, which suffered the brunt of mad cow disease over the past decade. It still has the highest number of positive tests. Spain, France, Denmark, Ireland and Portugal have also reported significant numbers of cases.
Politically, Democrats jumped on Republicans who removed a US ban on processing meat from "downed" animals -- those that are ill when they reach the plant -- from a massive agriculture spending bill.
"This is something that's a potential disaster," said Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman, a leader in supporting the processing prohibition. "This was so predictable by anybody following the issue."
Contaminated feed has been blamed in other countries for carrying the misshapen animal proteins, called prions, that can transmit mad cow disease. The US since August 1997 has banned the use of cow and sheep byproducts for animal feed.
The animal was one of 20 slaughtered on Dec. 9 at Vern's Moses Lake Meat Co in Moses Lake, Washington.
The beef industry sought to reassure Americans.
"It's important to recognize what we learned from Canadian consumers," Terry Stokes, CEO of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, told reporters. "They had confidence in Canadian beef and we feel American consumers will follow accordingly."
Canada had an isolated case of mad cow disease earlier this year. The US banned imports of Canadian beef immediately after that announcement but has gradually begun allowing them.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the case in Canada is linked, a USDA official said, but a connection is unlikely because the animals were of different breeds.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS