Mad Cow Testing Inadequate

Now that the U.S. has a confirmed case of mad cow disease, the adequacy of the testing procedures used to detect the disease are being questioned.

According to NPR, the U.S. only tests cows that show signs of disease.

The Telegraph reports that Japan tests every cow that is slaughtered. In Europe every cow that is older than 30 months is tested when slaughtered.

According to the New York Times the American testing system is "a surveillance system, not a food-safety test."

American inspectors have tested fewer than 30,000 of the roughly 300 million animals slaughtered in the last nine years, and they get results days or weeks later.

But the American system was never intended to keep sick animals from reaching the public's refrigerators, said Dr. Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian.

Statistically, it is meant only to assure finding the disease if it exists in one in 1 million animals, and only after slaughter.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, the Nobel Prize winning neurologist who discovered the proteins that cause mad cow disease, told the USDA that the U.S. should immediately start testing every cow that showed signs of illness and eventually every single cow upon slaughter.

The critics are right. America’s testing for mad cow disease is woefully inadequate. I don’t want to support the claim that mad cow disease was not detected here before now because too few animals were tested, but how can that claim be refuted?

The policy of only testing cows that appear to be sick, and using a test that takes weeks to provide results is, well std. Tests in Japan have found mad cow disease in apparently healthy animals. There are tests available that produce results in a few hours. We should follow Japan’s example and insist that every cow slaughtered be tested.

Comments

[Jim Griffith]

Please tell us: How is mad cow testing done on live animals? Does it require brain biopsy? a blood test?? What is cost?