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Today 7/12/2005 7:13:00 PM
US To Reach Regional BSE Survey Goals By End July -Source
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Department of Agriculture is on track to
reach all of its regional testing goals throughout the U.S. for bovine
spongiform encephalopathy by the end of July, a senior U.S. government official
said Tuesday.
"All the goals nationwide will be reached by the end of this month," said the
official, who asked not to be named.
USDA has already tested far more cattle for the brain wasting disease,
commonly called mad-cow, than it originally said was needed to get an accurate
picture of BSE prevalence in the U.S., but officials have kept it going to make
sure that each region of the country was adequately addressed.
In an interview with reporters last week, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
said he has enough funding to operate the enhanced surveillance program through
August.
"We have been working to make sure that in (the) surveillance program we're
touching all of the necessary bases - the regions of the country," Johanns
said.
A USDA report released in May said cattle in the Northwest region of the U.S.
may be at higher risk for exposure to BSE because of their proximity to western
Canada, where the infection of four North American cases originated.
Since that report was released, a fifth was found with no known link to
Canada. That case was found in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.
When USDA implemented its enhanced surveillance program more than 13 months
ago, USDA officials predicted it would run 12-18 months and one of the goals
was to test 268,000 "targeted high-risk" cattle. Since June 1, 2004, USDA has
tested 405,976 of those cattle.
In March 2004 Ron DeHaven, then deputy administrator for USDA's APHIS, said
he believed there were only about 446,000 animals in the U.S. that fell under
the "targeted high-risk population" designation for BSE. And if the USDA were
able to test 268,000 of those animals, it would get a 99% degree of confidence
that it could find one positive animal in 10 million if it existed.
USDA found its first case of BSE in December 2003 at a time when it was
testing 20,000 cattle a year for the disease. That cow, it was later revealed,
had been born and likely infected in Canada. The second case of BSE was found
in Texas and an investigation is still ongoing.
-By Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; [email protected].
US To Reach Regional BSE Survey Goals By End July -Source
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Department of Agriculture is on track to
reach all of its regional testing goals throughout the U.S. for bovine
spongiform encephalopathy by the end of July, a senior U.S. government official
said Tuesday.
"All the goals nationwide will be reached by the end of this month," said the
official, who asked not to be named.
USDA has already tested far more cattle for the brain wasting disease,
commonly called mad-cow, than it originally said was needed to get an accurate
picture of BSE prevalence in the U.S., but officials have kept it going to make
sure that each region of the country was adequately addressed.
In an interview with reporters last week, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
said he has enough funding to operate the enhanced surveillance program through
August.
"We have been working to make sure that in (the) surveillance program we're
touching all of the necessary bases - the regions of the country," Johanns
said.
A USDA report released in May said cattle in the Northwest region of the U.S.
may be at higher risk for exposure to BSE because of their proximity to western
Canada, where the infection of four North American cases originated.
Since that report was released, a fifth was found with no known link to
Canada. That case was found in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.
When USDA implemented its enhanced surveillance program more than 13 months
ago, USDA officials predicted it would run 12-18 months and one of the goals
was to test 268,000 "targeted high-risk" cattle. Since June 1, 2004, USDA has
tested 405,976 of those cattle.
In March 2004 Ron DeHaven, then deputy administrator for USDA's APHIS, said
he believed there were only about 446,000 animals in the U.S. that fell under
the "targeted high-risk population" designation for BSE. And if the USDA were
able to test 268,000 of those animals, it would get a 99% degree of confidence
that it could find one positive animal in 10 million if it existed.
USDA found its first case of BSE in December 2003 at a time when it was
testing 20,000 cattle a year for the disease. That cow, it was later revealed,
had been born and likely infected in Canada. The second case of BSE was found
in Texas and an investigation is still ongoing.
-By Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; [email protected].
