USDA Says Mad Cow Testing Will Be Expanded

The United States plans to significantly boost its testing for mad cow disease to see whether the brain-wasting disease has taken hold in the U.S. cattle population, the Agriculture Department said on Monday.

The United States plans to significantly boost its testing for mad cow disease to see whether the brain-wasting disease has taken hold in the U.S. cattle population, the Agriculture Department said on Monday.USDA Chief Veterinarian Ron DeHaven told reporters the department wanted to test as many “high risk” cattle as possible.The Bush administration has come under increased pressure from Congress, academic experts and trading partners to expand its tests for mad cow disease after the first and only U.S. case was discovered in Washington state in December.USDA’s announcement goes far beyond the government’s original plan to test 40,000 of the 35 million cattle slaughtered this year.”What we are trying to accomplish with this intensive effort is to determine through a high level of sampling whether or not we have cases of BSE indigenous in our national herd and if so, what is the prevalence,” DeHaven said.The USDA said it aimed to test as many adult cattle as possible that are sick, unable to walk or have died before slaughter. DeHaven said some 446,000 cattle fall under this category annually.”The goal of this program is to test as many of those animals in that targeted high risk population as possible in a 12 to 18 month period,” DeHaven said.Japan, the biggest buyer of American beef, has indicated it wanted the United States to test all of its slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease before easing its three-month ban. DeHaven on Monday reiterated that USDA does not believe this was necessary.”For surveillance purposes, the science doesn’t justify or support testing every animal,” DeHaven said.The USDA would not provide a specific number of tests it would conduct under the program.DeHaven said testing 201,000 cattle per year would allow inspectors to be at least 95 percent confident that if there was one case of mad cow disease among 10 million cattle, it could be identified. Testing 268,000 cattle would provide 99 percent confidence.The USDA said it also will randomly sample cattle from 40 U.S. slaughter plants that represent 86 percent of adult cattle.(Source: Reuters Health, March 2004)