March 31, 2004

The Netherlands Reports Fourth Mad Cow Case In 2004

A fourth case of mad cow disease was detected on a Dutch farm recently, the Agriculture Ministry announced.

This brings to 75 the number of cases of mad cow disease since the first ill cow was detected in March 1997 in the Netherlands.

The cow, named Tonnie 20, had been brought to the slaughterhouse where mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was detected in a preliminary test. Official confirmation came one week later.

The animal was born and raised at the farm in Geldermalsen in central Netherlands. None of the remaining 362 cows on the farm was infected. However, about 100 animals born around the same time as Tonnie 20 in November 1991 will be killed as a preventive measure.

Currently, the feed the cattle ate after they were born has been prohibited. Mad cow disease may be caused by fat or bones of dead cows which is mingled in the meal of the newborns.

A human disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is believed to be caused by eating neural tissue from cattle infected with mad cow disease.

Mad cow disease was first diagnosed in Britain in 1986 and spread through other countries in Europe and Japan. It was later surfaced in Canada and the United States.