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Another Friday Afternoon Announcement????

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Anonymous

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6/22/2005 9:37:00 PM


BSE Update: US Officials Expect BSE Test Results As Early As Friday



WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Tests to confirm whether a U.S. cow was infected with mad-cow disease should be finished soon, perhaps as early as Friday, government officials said Wednesday.



The tests on brain samples from the cow are being done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and at a U.K. government laboratory.



Danny Matthew, head of mad-cow disease research at the testing laboratory in Weybridge, England, told Dow Jones Newswires on Wednesday that scientists there are on schedule to finish the testing the U.S. asked for by Friday.



USDA Undersecretary J.B. Penn was quoted Wednesday by the agency's radio service saying he expects to get the results from England this week, or possibly early next week.



U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Ed Loyd said he expects to make results from USDA confirmatory testing public at the same time as the results from England.



The Weybridge laboratory belongs to England's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, or DEFRA, and it is the top European reference laboratory used by the World Organization for Animal Health.



On June 10, the USDA said that a cow's brain that tested negative for mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in November 2004, tested positive when a different test was used. Because of the mixed results, the USDA decided confirmatory tests needed to be run at U.S. and U.K. labs.



USDA officials have called the brain samples that produced mixed results "unique" and possibly evidence that an "atypical" form of the disease was involved.



But Matthew said that may not be the case.



"I think everyone's trying to over-interpret what's happening so far," he said. "They've had a little inconsistency in the way this sample has behaved which leads them to believe that possibly it may be different, but it's far too

premature to say that at the moment."



USDA veterinarian John Clifford said in a June 10 teleconference with reporters that scientists used a Western blot method to retest the suspect sample that had registered as a negative in November under the

Immunohisto chemistry, or IHC, test.



The Western blot test produced a "weak positive," Clifford said, and additional testing in the U.S. and U.K. would be needed to "confirm one way or another whether this is truly BSE or not."



Gary Weber, director of regulatory affairs for the U.S.-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said Wednesday it is possible that the Western blot test the USDA used "could get a false-positive." And until the

confirmatory results come back from the DEFRA laboratory in England and the USDA, he stressed that "there is absolutely no evidence that this is anything other than a...false positive."



DEFRA's Matthew said that USDA's different results from its BSE tests may have more to do with the quality of the samples being studied than the effectiveness of the tests.



That situation, he said, isn't uncommon. "There can be variations in the amount of abnormal prions in the brain stem and you could take one sample that's got enough in it and another sample that hasn't got enough.... If you can't confirm your initial result by applying a second test then it's good practice to try a third."





Source: Dow Jones
 
That situation, he said, isn't uncommon. "There can be variations in the amount of abnormal prions in the brain stem and you could take one sample that's got enough in it and another sample that hasn't got enough.... If you can't confirm your initial result by applying a second test then it's good practice to try a third."

Or a forth or fifth, until you get the results you want!
 
Oltimer - you aren't suggesting that BSE has nothing to do with nothing but science now are you. Fridays anouncement will be late in the day; too late for speculators who don't have an inside track. Watch things close tommorow.

Maybe you could help out some of your old buddies on here Agman and give us a heads up on any abnormal buying or selling Thursday afternoon.
 
rkaiser said:
Oltimer - you aren't suggesting that BSE has nothing to do with nothing but science now are you. Fridays anouncement will be late in the day; too late for speculators who don't have an inside track. Watch things close tommorow.

Maybe you could help out some of your old buddies on here Agman and give us a heads up on any abnormal buying or selling Thursday afternoon.


I read an interview the other day where Johanns admitted that he knew about OIG's further tests a day or two before-- during his big BSE dog and pony show in St. Paul-- but didn't mention anything during that-but announced the "possible positive" as soon as he found out about it Friday evening.....Couldn't keep his mouth shut another week to see if it truly was positive :???:

Skeptical- yes... The last bit of confidence I had in USDA's credibility is about gone-- but after 30 years of working with Federal agencies I didn't have a lot to begin with.....
 
The last bit of confidence I had in USDA's credibility is about gone

So are you saying that you don't believe they keep the food supply in the US safe?
 
If it's positive it will be announced after markets closed. If it's negative, you will hear as soon as they know.

We had our first positive announced early on a morning, and it was one of the worst disasters that they could have thrown on top of things. Sales were stopped with cattle still in the ring, buyers packed up and walked out. Sellers had to go to town and pick up their cattle and take them home again. If they had announced that cow on a Friday afternoon it would have been a lot easier on all involved. :?

Don't complain about a Friday announcement. It's done for a reason, and that is to let the overreaction come and go before the markets start up again on Friday.
 
he stressed that "there is absolutely no evidence that this is anything other than a...false positive."

Interesting, I thought the Western Blot test had never had a false positive before. I guess there's a first time for everything. Coincidental that it would just be in the USA that they would find that first false positive in all the 100s of thousands of tests that have been done.
 
SASH said:
he stressed that "there is absolutely no evidence that this is anything other than a...false positive."

Interesting, I thought the Western Blot test had never had a false positive before. I guess there's a first time for everything. Coincidental that it would just be in the USA that they would find that first false positive in all the 100s of thousands of tests that have been done.

I cannot speak for all SAF Immunoblots (Western Blot) BSE tests, but the "Prionics- Check Western" has never had a false positive out of 18 million tests. There are several others on the market. We'll have to wait and see.
 

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