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Dirty Canadian Cows
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/27/mad.cow/index.html
| quote: | WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Holstein diagnosed with mad cow disease in Washington state may have entered the United States from the Canadian province of Alberta in 2001 with 73 other cows, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Saturday.
Dr. Ron DeHaven, the USDA's chief of veterinary medicine, said Canadian records show the herd would have entered the United States at Eastport, Idaho.
He said investigators have matched an ear tag retrieved from the sick cow at the slaughterhouse to records from a Canadian cow.
Dr. Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said there is a discrepancy between the Canadians and the Americans versions of the cow's age.
"We do not have a definitive diagnosis of this particular animal," Evans said in a conference call with reporters.
U.S. investigators believe the sick cow was two years old and had borne three calves, one of which died. Canadian records show that the cow there was born in 1997, making it at least six years old, and had borne two calves.
In Canada's first mad cow case in a decade, an eight-year-old cow was tested and killed in January after showing signs of illness. Tests in England confirmed signs of mad cow disease.
DeHaven said investigators are uncertain whether they have located the birth herd, which would allow them to test other animals. The tests for mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), cannot be done on a live animal.
"These animals were all dairy cattle and entered the U.S. only about two or two-and-a-half years ago, so most of them are still likely alive," DeHaven said.
He emphasized that just because the sick cow was a member of the herd, it does not mean the other 73 animals were infected -- but it may not have shown up.
The brain-wasting mad cow disease is usually transmitted through contaminated feed and has an incubation period of four to five years.
Mad cow disease is linked to a similar form of the incurable and fatal brain-wasting disease in humans, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD.
There have been a small number of cases of vCJD reported worldwide, primarily in the United Kingdom, in people who ate BSE-contaminated meat.
At least 100 people have died of vCJD, and outbreaks of BSE have led to large declines in beef consumption.
Mad cow disease first appeared in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s and millions of cattle were slaughtered.
BSE spread across the European cattle industry, but the first case in North America did not appear until the Canadian case in May this year. Eighteen farms were quarantined, but no additional cases were discovered.
Many nations have banned beef imports from the United States, including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Mexico and China. |
Damn Canadians!   
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aka Tits McGee
aka Chesty LaRue
aka Busty St. Claire
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