Dallas – A cow that tested positive last week for mad cow disease was born in Texas and spent its entire 12 years there, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday.
The announcement comes five days after the agency disclosed that the animal – a beef cow used for breeding – had tested positive for the brain-wasting disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). It was the first discovery of the disease in a U.S.-bred animal.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, other politicians and scientists immediately sought to assure the public that U.S. beef – and Texas beef in particular – are safe.
“I want to urge calm and reassure the public that they can have the highest confidence in our beef supply and the safeguards we have in place to protect the public from the spread of BSE,” Perry said in a statement. “There is not, nor has there ever been, a known instance of BSE contaminating the food supply in Texas or anywhere else in the United States.”
Dr. John Clifford, chief veterinarian for the USDA, would not release information on the size or location of the Texas herd, though it was believed by industry sources to be from east Texas.
The so-called downer animal, unable to walk, was taken to a pet-food processing plant in Waco in November, where it was rejected. A brain sample was taken and the animal’s carcass was burned along with those of four other animals.
No part of the animal ever entered the food chain for humans or pets, USDA officials have stressed.
Humans who eat infected beef products can contract a fatal illness, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Matt Brockman, executive vice president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, noted that the disease has never been detected in “muscle” meat, including steaks, roasts and burgers.
“This should not taint any Texas beef or U.S. beef,” Clifford told a news conference, stressing that it was “one case out of 388,000 samples” tested.
Clifford said Texas animal health officials have placed a “hold on the herd of origin” and already have found two animals that are “definitely” related to the infected cow.
He said the agency will step up its search for animals born the same year and a year before or after the positive cow, and for any offspring born within the last two years.
The USDA began a hunt for associated animals in November, after a test for the disease proved inconclusive. But the effort was canceled after a second test came back negative.
A test last week at the world’s premier facility in Weybridge, England, confirmed that the United States had its second case of mad cow.
BSE is believed to be transmitted by animals eating feed infected with material from another infected animal. In 1997, the United States banned the practice of feeding cattle parts to other cows, but this animal was born before the ban.
