June 9, 2004

Britain Checks For New Brain Disease In Cattle
 

British government vets are carrying out fresh tests on a cow that died from a type of brain disease that has yet to be identified.

"The Veterinary Laboratories Agency has recorded what is possibly a new condition in cattle in the UK...an initial diagnosis suspected botulsim but that has now been ruled out," an agriculture ministry spokesman said.

Officials said research into the causes of the heifer's death - which came about a week after the animal began suffering from progressive paralysis - was already under way.

"It looks like a type of polio in cattle but nothing has been confirmed," an official at Britain's agriculture ministry said, adding that several other possibilities had also been crossed off the list.

Farm officials were keen to play down any suggestion that the disease could be a form of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the human form of which has been linked to the deaths of more than 130 people in Britain. However, scientists have said several strains of the deadly brain-wasting disorder might exist.

"The long-term risk to the public is not known but it must be stated that no meat from the cow has entered the food chain," a ministry spokesman said.

UK scientists first identified BSE in 1986 and the disease devastated dairy and cattle herds in the mid-1990s. But worries about the safety of British meat remain.

Last week, Britain's food safety watchdog launched an investigation into a possible breach of rules aimed at keeping meat infected with mad cow disease out of the food chain.

Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is also investigating 20 potential botulism outbreaks in cattle last year, nearly four times the average, and is urging farmers to get rid of poultry litter and carcasses properly.