06/27/05 confirmed bse case prompts test change

American Rancher June 27, 2005 USDA announced Friday that testing in England confirmed that a downer U.S. cow that never entered the food chain, but had previously been cleared of the disease in USDA testing, did indeed have BSE or mad cow. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns also announced that effective immediately, if another rapid screening test results in inconclusive findings, USDA will run both an IHC and Western blot confirmatory test. If results from either confirmatory test are positive, the sample will be considered positive for BSE. In this case the aged cow had come up inconclusive in rapid testing, negative on IHC and only months later after the Inspector General recommended further testing was a Western blot run which came up positive. Even with this positive case Johanns says BSE is a rarity in the United States. Johanns: "The point here is that after doing 388-thousand tests we are just simply just getting down to a point where it is a needle in a haystack endeavor. It is just so rare in this country that we run into BSE." USDA will not yet say where the positive animal came from in the U.S. Only that it was a beef cow eight years old or older and born before the mammalian feed ban was in place. USDA has initiated an epidemiological investigation to determine the cow's herd of origin. USDA and cattle organizations all emphasize that this confirmed case has no impact on the safety of U.S. beef. I'm Bob Hoff.