HLTH- 21 Texas Cattle To Be Killed & Tested 4 MCD

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I have read there is no sure way to know if an animal has MCD, until they do a biopsy of the dead animals brain. Now read this snip:

Offspring of the cattle have been sold without restrictions because state veterinarians don't believe the calves pose a risk if the cow showed no symptoms of the disease, Everett said.

Mar 28, 2001 - 06:55 PM

Texas Officials to Kill 21 Cattle and Test Them for Mad Cow Disease The Associated Press

AUSTIN (AP) - State officials said they will destroy cattle imported from Germany to test whether the animals were exposed to mad cow disease before leaving Europe in 1996 and 1997. The 21 animals will be gathered from five ranches around the state and taken to College Station to be killed. Samples of the animals' brain tissue will be sent to a national laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Animal Health Commission officials said Wednesday.

The animals' remains will be incinerated.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has never been detected in U.S. cattle, but has infected herds in Europe since the mid-1980s. The disease has been blamed for more than 80 human deaths in England. The disease attacks the brain and spinal cord.

Texas officials described the decision to destroy the cattle imported from Germany as a precaution because of public concern over mad cow disease.

The cattle were part of 29 imported from Germany before a 1997 U.S. ban on European livestock. All had been under quarantine since March 1997, after health officials traced them to their current owners.

The owners, who were not identified, had declined to sell the animals $2,000 per head compensation offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

They waited until the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the Texas Beef Council and the Texas Cattlefeeders Association raised an additional $57,000 for compensation.

None of the imported cattle have shown signs of the disease, said Carla Everett, a spokeswoman for the Animal Health Commission.

Four of the original German animals were killed and tested for mad cow disease, and none were found to be infected, Everett said. Two others were slaughtered before the ban on European cattle, one died in 1997 and another in January, and none had symptoms of mad cow, she said.

Offspring of the cattle have been sold without restrictions because state veterinarians don't believe the calves pose a risk if the cow showed no symptoms of the disease, Everett said.

AP-ES-03-28-01 1855EST © Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001


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