5 Cows From Mad Cow's Herd Found

Five cows from the same herd that contained a Holstein with mad cow disease have been traced to a facility in central Washington, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday.

The finding brings to 19 the number of cows located from the Canadian herd of 81 cattle that entered the United States in 2001, the USDA said in a news release. A sick Holstein from the herd was the first domestic case of the disease.

Since the USDA announced Dec. 23 that the cow tested positive for mad cow disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more than 30 countries have banned the import of U.S. beef products.

The five cows were found at Connell, about 30 miles north of Pasco. One cow was earlier found at a dairy farm in Quincy; three were at a dairy farm in Mattawa, and nine were traced to the Mabton farm where the infected cow was sent to slaughter.

Authorities identified 129 cows at the Mabton farm to be killed and tested. All were to have been euthanized by the end of Friday. All 28 animals tested so far have come up negative for the disease.

Mad cow disease eats holes in the brains of cattle and is incurable. It is a concern because humans can develop a brain-wasting illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from consuming contaminated beef products.

Locating all the cows from the Canadian herd is key to ensuring mad cow disease does not spread to humans. It also helps reduce the number of cows that have to be destroyed as a precaution.

"It's a paper trail. We look at import documents, health certificates, farmer sales and shipping orders," said Jim Rogers, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.

There are also interviews with ranchers, shippers, feedlot operators and anyone else who may have come across the animals. And there is DNA testing on calves to determine whether they were offspring of the diseased cow.

The scare already has prompted the department to speed up the creation of a national electronic identification system that would track animals as they move from fields to feedlots to supermarkets. It would enable officials to respond faster to an outbreak of mad cow or other animal-borne illnesses.