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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Friday, November 04, 2005
We Can't Trace Back Mad Cow Cases
When cases of mad cow are found, we currently don't have any way to go back, find all the related cows that could also be at risk, and remove their meat from the food supply until we know for sure:
Researchers hunting the herd linked to the first U.S. case of mad cow disease found that most of the animals were slaughtered, and possibly in the human food supply, even before the government inquiry began.
The federal and state governments closed an investigation into the infected cow, which was raised at an unidentified Texas ranch, in August.
But The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday obtained details about the search for the 413 cows and calves under a Texas open records request. About 350 of the cows, or roughly 85 percent, were sent to slaughter.
The reports, compiled for the Texas Animal Health Commission by a government employee, demonstrate how problematic it was to track the herd mates and progeny of the diseased cow.
The investigators' searches for feed records as well as "animals of interest" went back years, but many records were no longer available.
The state wound up relying on its own data in the county between 1990 and 1994 to get a snapshot of the herd.
Oh, and if we can't do this for mad cow disease, we can't do it for bioterror, either.
Read on for more: Katie Fairbank, "Too late to track mad cow," Dallas Morning News, Nov. 2, 2005
Posted by Robert Shull
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