USDA pre-declares all beef to be safe even before mad cow disease test results

Mad-cow disease is a chronic degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system of cattle. Local cattle ranchers said they weren’t surprised by the discovery, given the government’s testing practices. Ranchers are confident in the safety of the U.S. beef supply because of the precautions already taken against mad cow disease. “The way we handle our cattle and the process in which our cattle are fed is environmentally safe,” said Ken Read, president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

• U.S. Department of Agriculture officials and Central Oregon ranchers said on Thursday that the nation's supply of beef is safe, despite news that a government screening process recently detected the country's second possible case of mad cow.
• Confirmation of the possible second case through further testing is expected within four to seven days, said USDA spokesman Andrea McNally.
• According to a USDA news conference held Thursday morning, the animal carcass in question is part of the targeted high-risk population being tested for mad cow.
• The high-risk group includes older cattle, "downers," or cattle too sick to walk, and cows suspected of having neurological ailments.
• Mad-cow disease, called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a chronic degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system of cattle, according to the USDA Web site.
• This just shows that it's working," said Coy Cowart, president of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association.
• "They've made this test so sensitive, so (the USDA) has indicated that there would be a number of false positives that would come out in the future," said J.W. Hart, Crook County president of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association.
• "This won't be the last time that you hear that we may have a BSE cow in the United States, but the important thing is we do test these animals and we do keep the meat as safe as we possibly can," said Hart.
• After the USDA's announcement on Thursday about the possible discovery of BSE, beef prices fell, according to The Associated Press.
• According to the USDA, safeguards include a longstanding ban on imports of live cattle from high-risk countries; the prohibition of most mammalian protein in cattle feed; removing downer cattle from the human food chain; and conclusive testing for BSE of all animal carcasses presented for slaughter and rendering.