LOVELOCK - In case you hadn't heard or seen on the news, last week the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease was detected in a dairy cow from a farm in Tulare, Calif. Federal officials said Thursday that they now know the latest cow found in the U.S. with mad-cow disease was 10 years and seven months old, giving investigators new pieces of the puzzle as they try to trace back the animal's origins.
The cow had been sent from the dairy to a rendering operation where it was tested for the disease as part of the Department of Agriculture's routine monitoring. It's important to reiterate that (the California dairy cow) was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, did not enter the food supply channels and at no time presented any risk to human health.
Investigators need to know how old the cow was when it died as well as where it was born to find out if it sired any offspring as well as locate herd mates from early on in its life, USDA Chief Veterinarian John Clifford said Wednesday. If the investigators find any offspring or early herd mates, it will purchase them and take them off the market.
It is the fourth cow ever found with BSE in the U.S. and the first since 2006. USDA officials have said the California dairy cow contracted a rare "atypical" strain of the disease, meaning it likely didn't acquire it through eating contaminated feed.
Good news for U.S. beef producers is that major export markets for U.S. beef from Canada to Japan stayed open after the United States reported the detection of the diseased cow. Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Canada and the European Union said they would continue to import U.S. beef, although two major South Korean retailers halted sales and Indonesia, a small buyer, suspended shipments. In 2011, Canada, Japan, Mexico and South Korea combined took 65 percent, or 1.82 billion pounds, of U.S. beef exports.
However, this incident does reignite a long-running debate about what has been described as a weak link in the U.S. beef supply: the lack of a mandatory system to trace the path a cow takes from farm to fork.
Several attempts to come up with a national identification system for livestock in this country have failed due to strong resistance by segments of the cattle industry, which viewed it as a costly government intrusion, the Congressional Research Service reported in 2010.
In its most recent proposal, the Agriculture Department would allow each state to come up with its own identification system for livestock. If the cattle cross state lines, however, the USDA would then require tagging of the animal.
For more information on the proposed rules for animal disease traceability go to http://www.aphis.usda.gov/traceability/.
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