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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Latest Case of Mad Cow
You think by now they'd have the system down.
An inconclusive test indicates that a third cow may have been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Once again, USDA faces complications in determining whether the cow had BSE.
First, though the sample was collected in April, it was only sent for testing in July. Evidently, the vet who took the sample forgot to submit it for testing. According to the L.A. Times, USDA's chief veterinarian John Clifford called the age of the sample "not optimal."
Moreover, the sample was preserved in such a way that USDA scientists cannot use the more advanced Western blot test (also known as the protein immunoblot test), to re-test the sample, but rather scientists must rely on the IHC test that gave the first inconclusive results. The IHC test also failed to catch the last case of BSE, but the case was eventually confirmed using the Western blot. Because the Western blot cannot be used in this case, the results may remain inconclusive. Fortunately, USDA recently adopted the Western blot as its new gold standard of BSE surveillance.
Posted by Genevieve Smith
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