Mad Cow Disease Confirmed In Alabama

(CBS/AP)  A cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department confirmed Monday. It is the third confirmed case in the U.S.

The animal was a beef cow but hadn't entered the food supply for people or animals, said the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford. The cow was euthanized by a private veterinarian and buried on the farm.

Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

"I want to emphasize that human and animal health in the United States are protected by a system of interlocking safeguards, and that we remain very confident in the safety of U.S. beef," Clifford said.

"As of this time, there are no restrictions on Alabama beef producers," said Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture & Industries Ron Sparks. "Beef is safe. We can continue to consume beef as we did yesterday."

The news comes as the Bush administration works to reassure Japan and other foreign customers of American beef.

But, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports that the discovery could shake foreign confidence. Japan had been close to lifting a ban on American beef which it imposed in January after finding veal cuts with backbone in the meat.

"Japan awakes today to the headline that a third case of BSE has been detected in America," Andrews reports, "and if the news shakes the confidence of the Japanese consumer, this billion dollar market could vanish yet again."

The local veterinarian tested the animal for mad cow disease last week because the animal was a "downer," meaning it could not stand up, said Alabama State Veterinarian Dr. Tony Frazier.

He found the presence of the disease and sent samples to the Agriculture department. Results were confirmed by more detailed testing at a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Clifford said.

U.S. investigators have found two previous cases of mad cow disease. The first was in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state. The second case was last June in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.

In the most recent case, the cow spent the past year at an Alabama farm, he said. The department is investigating where the animal was born and raised.

The animal appears to have been at least 10 years old, Clifford said. The age of the cow is important because the U.S. put safeguards in place nine years ago to prevent the disease from spreading. The U.S. banned ground-up cattle remains from being added to cattle feed in 1997. Eating contaminated feed is the only way cattle are known to contract the disease.

"This would indicate that this animal would have been born prior to the implementation of the Food and Drug Administration's 1997 feed ban," Clifford said.

"She could only have been exposed to this a long time ago," said Frazier. "She is not shedding any organisms."

Agriculture officials say there appear to be no other cases of mad cow and have not quarantined the farm where this case was identified.

CBS's Andrews again cautions, "Mathematically, there have to be other cows that ate the same batch of feed – and the USDA's ability to trace back every farm on which this animal once lived, much less identify its herd mates, is limited."

Different types of tests indicated the presence of mad cow disease. Two versions of the initial "rapid" screening test suggested the cow had the disease, and a more detailed Western blot confirmed that finding. The department is still doing a third type of test, immunohistochemistry, or IHC, and will release those results later in the week.