• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Ranchers.net

CATTLE: (DTN) -- A new strain of BSE that some believe arises spontaneously
may have afflicted the U.S. animal that tested positive for the ailment last
week, according to a senior Agriculture Department quoted in a Reuters story.

Juergen Richt, a member of the USDA team in Ames, Iowa, that already tested
the animal, said the unusual test results could point to a relatively new
strain of BSE that infects cattle sporadically, instead of from eating
contaminated food. But he said it was too early to draw a conclusion about the
aging, beef animal slaughtered last November and incinerated because it was a
"downer".

The only confirmed U.S. case of mad cow disease was found in a Holstein
dairy cow in Washington state in December 2003. Since then, scientists in
France, Italy, Japan and Belgium have discovered at least two new BSE strains
that differ from the outbreak that swept European herds in the 1980s.

Some experts believe the new BSE strains could arise naturally within
cattle, for reasons that remain unknown. "The jury is still out on this," Richt
said. "Is it infectious? That's the $100,000 question."

Richt considered the current suspect animal a good candidate for the
atypical strain, with conflicting test results similar to cases in Japan and
Belgium.

Last week, the USDA's office of inspector general ordered more testing. The
Western blot procedure used in Japan and Europe showed a "weak positive." In
atypical cases, weak test results were a result of a wider distribution of the
abnormal or misshaped prion protein, the main signature of the disease, in an
infected brain.
Top