Cow Disease

TORONTO - No other cases of mad cow disease have been found in the Western Canada herd where a 6-year-old cow was found with the crippling brain ailment, authorities reported yesterday. But Canadian health officials did not rule out the possibility of wide-scale cattle slaughters to guarantee the integrity of Canada's $21.9 billion cattle industry, which faces the possibility of North America's first home-grown case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, which has been linked to a fatal nerve disease in humans through the consumption of contaminated meat.

Deer test negative for fatal affliction For the fifth consecutive year, Maryland's wild deer population has tested negative for a fatal affliction similar to mad cow disease, the Department of Natural Resources reported yesterday. Federal, state and local biologists, and veterinarians took brain stem and lymph gland samples from 969 deer during the 2006-2007 hunting season and found no trace of chronic wasting disease. Tests on 13 deer that appeared sick also turned up negative. "Most of the samples came from hunter-harvested deer, and we appreciate their cooperation and understanding as we try to keep Maryland CWD-free," said Bob Beyer, DNR associate director for game management.

LONDON -- Pedro Albano is usually a Big Mac kind of guy, but yesterday he wandered into a McDonald's and opted for a vegetable patty served on a roll."

CHICAGO -- If a hospital wanted to advertise that it upholds sanitary standards higher than any required by the government, no one would object. A used-car dealer who decided to offer only vehicles with the best crash-test scores would be free to do so. But after a meatpacker announced plans to establish the strictest program around to protect consumers from mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture replied: fat chance. Eating meat from animals afflicted with the illness can cause irreversible, fatal damage to the brain.

MONTREAL - Canadian and American agricultural scientists scrambled yesterday to trace the history of a black Angus infected with mad cow disease in Alberta, and ranchers braced for possible economic disaster as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea joined the United States in banning imports of all Canadian beef and sheep products. An additional two ranches in the Peace River valley of northern Alberta were put under quarantine, bringing the total of shuttered cattle operations to three, as authorities sought to discover how the cow contracted North America's first case of deadly bovine spongiform encephalopathy in a decade.

WASHINGTON - A cow that died of complications from calving in April might have been infected with mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday. There is no danger to the human or animal food supply, said Dr. John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian, because the carcass was destroyed where the cow died after tissue samples were collected. Clifford said a sample of brain tissue was submitted by a veterinarian who treats animals in "a remote area," which he did not identify.

WASHINGTON - A cow that was cleared of having mad cow disease last fall by the U.S. Department of Agriculture was in fact infected with the brain-wasting disease, the department announced yesterday, making it the second confirmed case of the disease in this country. The cow was incinerated last fall and never made it into the U.S. food supply, said Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns. He said the cow appeared to have been born in the United States, a significant fact because it suggests that the animal ate infected feed in this country that could have been eaten by other animals.

MIAMI - Just last year she was a University of Miami graduate with a shy smile and big dreams. Now, the 23-year-old woman - whose family wants her known by only her first name, Charlene - is wasting away with the United States' only known case of mad cow disease. She has lost nearly 40 pounds and has to be fed through a tube in a bedroom at her father's South Florida home. A blue T-shirt and sweat pants hang off her emaciated body. She can no longer walk or talk. "She was a sweetheart, always very happy, always wanting to help," said her sister, Lisa.

WASHINGTON - Initial tests last week indicating a possible new case of mad cow disease in the United States have proved negative after subsequent testing, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced yesterday. The potential case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was found through a rapid screening program initiated by the USDA after the first - and, so far, only - U.S. case was discovered in Washington state in December last year. More than 121,000 cattle have been tested since the program started June 1. Tests on three, including the current case, came back positive in preliminary screening, but the cattle were cleared of infection after more definitive tests.

BANBURY, England -- Harry Colegrave is 73 years old and has been fattening cattle for slaughter nearly all his life. He has lived through economic booms, busts and outbreaks of disease, but he has never before encountered a full-blown panic like the "mad cow" frenzy that is sweeping Britain and Europe."

WASHINGTON -- Federal officials moved quickly yesterday to assure Japan that American beef is safe after Japanese officials discovered fragments of spine in a shipment of veal and abruptly halted imports. The halt came just five weeks after Japan had lifted a two-year ban on beef from the United States over fears that it could cause the fatal brain-wasting "mad cow" disease. The move posed a new threat to a U.S. beef trade worth more than $1 billion a year with Japan and other Asian nations that have just lifted similar bans.

WASHINGTON -- In response to the threat of mad cow disease, the Food and Drug Administration proposed yesterday banning the use of certain potentially infectious cattle parts in animal feed, but the agency brushed aside other safety measures it had appeared to endorse last year. The new rules, to take effect early next year, are expected to reduce the risk of infection by 90 percent, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is believed to be caused by abnormal proteins, known as prions, found in brain and nerve tissue.

When a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy - commonly known as mad cow disease - arrived dead at a Texas packing plant in June, it took two federal and two state agencies two months to investigate where the animal had been and which animals it had been in contact with before it died. Now, in an attempt to contain livestock diseases within 48 hours of an outbreak and trace an infected animal back to its birth, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is asking livestock producers to register all farms, grazing areas, livestock markets, slaughterhouses and veterinary clinics in the first phase of a national registry that will eventually track animals, too. The Maryland Department of Agriculture, which is administering the federal program, is hoping to voluntarily register all of the state's 8,200 livestock "premises" in the National Animal Identification System before premise registry becomes mandatory in 2007.

NATIONAL Future shuttle flights on hold NASA put future space shuttle flights on indefinite hold yesterday after agency managers admitted that a piece of insulating foam nearly as large as the piece that doomed Columbia in 2003 fell off Discovery's external fuel tank during launch. [Page 1a] Man sentenced in bomb plot The Algerian man who plotted to blow up Los Angeles International Airport at the height of millennium celebrations five years ago was sentenced to 22 years in prison yesterday.

WASHINGTON - A cow that died of complications from calving in April might have been infected with mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday. There is no danger to the human or animal food supply, said Dr. John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian, because the carcass was destroyed where the cow died after tissue samples were collected. Clifford said a sample of brain tissue was submitted by a veterinarian who treats animals in "a remote area," which he did not identify.

WASHINGTON - A cow that was cleared of having mad cow disease last fall by the U.S. Department of Agriculture was in fact infected with the brain-wasting disease, the department announced yesterday, making it the second confirmed case of the disease in this country. The cow was incinerated last fall and never made it into the U.S. food supply, said Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns. He said the cow appeared to have been born in the United States, a significant fact because it suggests that the animal ate infected feed in this country that could have been eaten by other animals.

ORLEANS, France - If there is a Gallic version of hell, it surely must be this: to watch as food you love is outlawed or deemed dangerous, and to hear that eating it may lead to sickness and death. Last month, Philippe Bardau, the top-rated chef in this former royal capital on the Loire, took all beef-based dishes off the menu of his 19-table restaurant, which boasts a star in the Michelin guide. No one, Bardau says, dare order his Bavarian beef tenderloin or veal cutlet garnished with veal sweetbread ravioli anymore.

LONDON -- When your relationship is forged on battlefields like Hastings, Agincourt and Waterloo, there are bound to be a few ups and downs over the years. The British and French just love a good spat. They're in the middle of another one these days, over beef. That's bully to the British, entrecote to the French. More than three years after the "mad cow disease" crisis devastated Britain's beef industry, British beef is back on the world market courtesy of the European Union, which lifted an export ban in August.