WASHINGTON - The discovery of mad cow disease in a Washington state Holstein - confirmed yesterday by British veterinary pathologists - has focused new attention on whether animals too disabled to walk to slaughter should be banned from the U.S. food supply.
The animal that was tested had been flagged in the first place because it had been partially paralyzed, apparently after complications in delivering a calf, said W. Ron DeHaven, the Department of Agriculture's chief veterinarian.
The cow came from a dairy farm, where its career as a milk producer was over.
Animal welfare groups argue that such nonambulatory, or so-called downer, cows are more likely to carry or die from infectious diseases. They are calling on Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman to bar them from meat-processing plants.
"Anything's on the table at this point," DeHaven said yesterday. Changing the way downers are handled, he added, is among "a number of things we might or might not do."
He declined to detail the measures under discussion.
The USDA noted this year that data from Europe, where mad cow disease previously emerged, indicate that downer cattle "have a greater incidence of BSE," or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for mad cow disease.
The first known U.S. case of mad cow disease was announced Monday based on USDA tests in Ames, Iowa.
Samples were sent to a laboratory in Waybridge, England, that specializes in the disease. Scientists there agreed yesterday with the U.S. analysis of the Iowa test and expect to conduct further testing over the next several days.
Agriculture officials have stressed that they consider the health risk to consumers to be extremely low. The slaughterhouse that processed the diseased cow, Verns Moses Lake Meats of Moses Lake, Wash., voluntarily recalled 10,410 pounds of meat, all that was handled the day the animal was killed.
A case of mad cow disease surfaced in Canada in May. That animal also was unable to walk on its own. At that point, Consumers Union urged Veneman to "at a minimum" test all downed animals for the infectious disease, which can lead to a fatal illness in humans.
Animal rights groups estimate that of the 35 million to 40 million cattle slaughtered each year in the United States, 130,000 to 190,000 - about 1 percent - are sent to meatpackers because they've been disabled.
Cruelty and safety
