What is the current situation regarding the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) detection?
On the morning of December 25, 2003, the BSE World Reference Laboratory in Weybridge, England, confirmed USDA’s December 23 preliminary diagnosis of BSE in a single non-ambulatory dairy cow that had been slaughtered on December 9 at Vern’s Moses Lake Meats in Washington State. USDA and Canada worked together to confirm the identification of this cow through DNA testing. On December 30, 2003, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced additional safeguards to bolster the U.S. protection systems against BSE and further protect public health. The policies will further strengthen protections against BSE by removing certain animals and specified risk material and tissues from the human food chain; requiring additional process controls for establishments using advanced meat recovery (AMR); holding meat from cattle that have been targeted for BSE surveillance testing until the test has confirmed negative; and prohibiting the air injection stunning of cattle. The Secretary also announced that
