Analysis: U.S. mad cow find: lucky break or triumph of science?

By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON, Apr. 25, 2012 (Reuters) — The discovery this week of the fourth U.S. case of mad cow disease was one of two things for food safety experts: a validation of a decade-long focused surveillance regime or a lucky break that highlights the need to revisit previously scrapped efforts for more comprehensive surveillance.

For now, calls for greater monitoring seem likely to go unheard, both because the "atypical" case appeared to be a one-in-a-million genetic mutation that officials said posed no threat to the food supply, and because of tightening budgets.

Funding for cattle health programs in the proposed 2013 budget is set to fall by 20 percent compared to two years earlier.

Discovery of the infected dairy cow at a rendering plant in central California may stoke an intensifying debate over food safety in the United States, already a major topic after the "pink slime" furor this spring, fungicide-tainted orange juice from Brazil and never-ending efforts to control disease in food caused by salmonella and e Coli bacteria.

While major importers from Japan to Canada pledged to maintain beef shipments and U.S. officials stressed that the "atypical" case had occurred in the cow spontaneously and was not in others animals, critics were quick to respond.

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USDA says Holstein in Calif. mad cow case was euthanized after becoming lame, lying down

SAN FRANCISCO — The California dairy cow found to have mad cow disease had been euthanized after it became lame and started lying down, federal officials revealed in their latest update on the discovery.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also said Thursday that the animal was 10 years and seven months old.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes of California had said Wednesday that the sick cow was 5 years old. It came from a dairy farm in Tulare County, the nation’s No. 1 dairy-producing county.

The USDA didn’t elaborate on the cow’s symptoms other than to say it was “humanely euthanized after it developed lameness and became recumbent.” Outward signs of the disease can include unsteadiness and incoordination.

Routine testing at a transfer facility showed the dead Holstein, which was destined for a rendering plant, had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The results were announced Tuesday. It was the fourth case of mad cow disease ever discovered in the U.S.

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Mad Cow Disease Confirmed In California Dairy Cow, USDA Says

The USDA has confirmed that a case of mad cow disease was found in a California dairy cow. It is the fourth case of mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), found in U.S. cattle since the first in December 2003. Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities confirmed that the cow was discovered in a Hanford, Calif. transfer station after workers selected the cow for random sampling. The company does not yet know which farm the cow came from.

USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford said Tuesday afternoon that the cow did not enter the human food chain and that all U.S. meat and dairy supplies are safe. Further mitigating the risk to the public, milk does not transmit BSE.

According to the USDA, the animal's carcass is being held under state authority at a California rendering facility and will be destroyed. "It was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health," Clifford said.

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