A suspected case of mad cow disease has been detected in the United States

Second mad cow case suspected in USA
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
A suspected case of mad cow disease has been detected in the United States, agriculture officials said Thursday.
If confirmed, it would be the second known case of the fatal brain-wasting disease in U.S. livestock, and the first since last December.

In the only confirmed U.S. case, a Canadian-born Holstein was found to have been infected, but just that one case caused Japan and more than three dozen other countries to refuse U.S. beef. That hurt U.S. export sales and the farm economy.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials would not release details about the newly suspect animal or its location, except to say that it was in a "high risk population," meaning it was emaciated or showed signs of neurological problems.

No part of it has entered the food chain, said Andrea Morgan of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), attacks an animal's nervous system. People who eat food contaminated with BSE can contract a rare disease that is nearly always fatal, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Financial markets reacted quickly. Cattle prices fell 3% after the news and by midday, the price of live cattle for delivery in February was down 2.65 cents to 86.25 cents a pound. Stock prices for major meat companies also fell. Tyson Foods was down more than 1% to $16.66 in early afternoon trading.

The wait to find out more about this case has "put the entire (beef) industry really in limbo," said John McBride, a spokesman for the Livestock Marketing Association, based in Kansas City, Mo.

"With final results not being available for four to seven days, it's going to disrupt the livestock market. Buyers are going to be reluctant to buy, sellers are going to be reluctant to put their livestock on the market," he said. "The effect on the market could be profound.

James Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation, said it's too soon to know how this will affect trade negotiations with Japan, which banned beef imports after the first U.S. case of mad cow. Japan was the top importer of U.S. beef.

Morgan said tissue has been sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, for confirmatory testing. Results are expected in four to seven days.

In June, the USDA began a program to increase screening tests. So far, 113,000 animals have been tested, said USDA spokeswoman Julie Quick. By the end of next year, she said, the goal is to test "upwards of 268,000 animals."

The USDA announced two other suspected cases in June, shortly after rapid screening tests began to be widely used. In both cases, further tests proved negative. For that reason, the agency later decided not to announce suspected cases until two consecutive screening tests produce questionable results.

"The fact that this has been double-tested drops the odds significantly that it's a false positive," said Michael Hansen of Consumers Union. If further tests are positive, he said, "the USDA must recognize BSE is indigenous in North America, and strong actions need to be taken to prevent its spread."

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise and Barbara Hagenbaugh