Hunt is continuing for clues to origin of disease in Wash.
Marc Kaufman
Washington Post
Jan. 3, 2004 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department has quarantined a third cattle herd in Washington state after locating another cow from the Canadian shipment believed to have contained the animal with the nation's first known case of mad-cow disease.
W. Ron DeHaven, the department's deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer, said Friday that a dairy farm near Yakima was quarantined this week when the cow was found. With the discovery of that animal, he said, the government has located 11 of the 82 cows from the Alberta herd that was shipped into Washington in September 2001, and it has good leads on many of the others.
DeHaven said the agency is searching for the animals not because it fears they can spread the disease but because tracing them may help authorities identify the source of potentially contaminated feed consumed by the cow when it was young. That feed could have been the source of the infection. Nonetheless, he said the animals in all of the quarantined herds may be slaughtered to ease public concerns about the safety of American beef.
DeHaven also said the U.S. and Canadian governments were moving forward with testing the DNA of the infected Holstein as well as the semen from the bull believed to be its father to confirm whether it was from, as suspected, a herd in Alberta. He said the governments expect to have an answer next week, although even these findings may not be conclusive.
"While the DNA testing may enable us to make a definitive determination, it is just one piece of information, and there's always opportunity for error," he said.
As an example of the possible limitations of the DNA testing, DeHaven said that although the infected Holstein is believed to have been conceived through artificial insemination using semen from an identified bull, it is possible that a different bull was actually the father. To ensure that the cows are impregnated, he said, breeders routinely send in "cleanup bulls" to mate with cows that have previously been artificially inseminated.
After Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman's announcement this week that "downer" cows, those too sick or crippled to walk, will be no longer allowed into the food chain, the beef industry has been working with the agency to set up a system to ensure they are not slaughtered, DeHaven said.
In addition, he said, the government and industry have been working on new ways to make sure that many of the downer cows are tested for mad-cow disease now that they won't be going to slaughterhouses.
One of the ideas being considered is to pay feedlot owners to bring in their downer cows for testing.
Dennis
And yes, I have a cousin who is a slaughterhouse manager in Ohio.
