Mad Cow Disease Discovered in California Cow
April 24, 2012 at 2:31 PM 1 comment
Yikes. This is not good:
WASHINGTON, April 24, 2012 – USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford today released the following statement on the detection of BSE in the United States:
“As part of our targeted surveillance system, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the nation’s fourth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow from central California. The carcass of the animal is being held under State authority at a rendering facility in California and will be destroyed. It was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health. Additionally, milk does not transmit BSE.
[...]
“We are sharing our laboratory results with international animal health reference laboratories in Canada and England, which have official World Animal Health (OIE) reference labs. These labs have extensive experience diagnosing atypical BSE and will review our confirmation of this form of the disease. In addition, we will be conducting a comprehensive epidemiological investigation in conjunction with California animal and public health officials and the FDA.
But hey, we’re all willing to flush food safety down the drain as long as we balance the budget and shrink government, right?
An exclusive Daily Beast investigation shows the nation’s food-safety system exposes Americans to the risk of illness and death because of a lack of inspectors and budget cuts.
Entry filed under: Animals (Other Than Us), Food. Tags: .
1.
JC for pennies | April 25, 2012 at 1:53 AM
Then I guess it’ll no longer be the cheese that attracts Wisconsinites to move here to “Cali,” despite the existence of Mad Human Disease in a goodly number of teaparty Repugs there. Such as the esteemed guv Scott Walker.