Federal officials plan to slaughter 129 cows that may have been exposed to feed tainted with mad cow disease, a top veterinary official said yesterday.
The U.S. Agriculture Department earlier this week slaughtered and buried in a landfill 450 bull calves from Sunnyside, Wash., one of three herds linked to the United States’ first case of mad cow.
The latest depopulation will affect a small portion of a 4,000-cow dairy operation in Mabton, Wash., that was home to the Holstein that last month tested positive for the fatal illness. The animals will be tested for mad cow and will not enter the human or animal feed chains, said Ron DeHaven, chief veterinary officer for the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The two herds, and a third quarantined operation in Mattawa, Wash., are linked to the mad cow case because animals there are offspring of the Holstein or were born on the same farm in Alberta, Canada.
USDA officials believe 81 cows entered the United States from that Alberta farm and may have shared the same feed, the most likely source of the disease.
Some of those animals, which entered the country in 2001, have been tracked to the Mabton operation and are mixed in with the approximately 129 animals that will be killed, Dr. DeHaven said. Existing records do not allow the pool of animals to be narrowed, he said.
“Applying our principle of an abundance of caution, the USDA believes that euthanizing these animals that may have been in the … positive animal’s birth herd is an appropriate action to take at this time,” Dr. DeHaven said.
Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman on Dec. 23 announced the United States’ first mad cow case. Formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, the disease fatally attacks the central nervous system of cattle. More than 150 people, mostly in Britain, who have eaten tissue from infected animals have developed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain-wasting illness.
Since then, the Bush administration has announced a series of measures to allay concerns among consumers and trading partners, and to reduce any chance of the illness spreading.
Mrs. Veneman announced several new rules Dec. 30. Some, such as a ban on allowing animals too sick to walk into the human food chain, took effect immediately and others, eliminating certain tissues from the food chain, will take effect Monday, Dr. DeHaven said.
U.S. consumers appear satisfied with safeguards against mad cow — restaurants and supermarkets have reported steady beef sales — but trade partners quickly banned American meat.
A trade team from Japan, the largest foreign consumer of U.S. beef, this week visited the United States on a fact-finding mission and another team from Mexico, one of the top three consumers, is expected next week.
Neither country has made any move to lift its ban, and Japan is demanding stronger preventive and testing measures to protect its consumers from the disease.
More than $3 billion in annual overseas sales, accounting for about 10 percent of domestic production, was halted with the mad cow announcement.
Several senators this week called for a special envoy to reopen markets.
“Unfortunately … more than 40 countries — including most of our largest export markets — have imposed bans on the importation of U.S. beef products,” Sens. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, and eight colleagues said in a letter to Mrs. Veneman.
“A special envoy empowered by you to negotiate directly with trading partners around the world will send a strong signal that the U.S. is committed to working in a science-based manner to reopen trade,” the legislators said.
Canada, the apparent source of two BSE cases last year, also has announced a series of measures to trace cattle and increase BSE surveillance and testing.
Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Bob Speller plans to meet with Mrs. Veneman Jan. 16 to review the BSE situation.
Cattle industries from the two countries are closely integrated, but the United States banned live cattle from Canada in May, when the first mad cow case was announced.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.