January 6, 2006

Japan gets lead in mad cow disease research

Japanese scientists may have successfully infected cattle with mad cow disease, said Tsutomu Ogi, director of The Hokkaido Animal Research Centre's livestock engineering section on Jan 5. This discovery was part of the experiment focussed on early detection of mad cow disease.

Ogi said that the institute injected prions--proteins thought to cause the disease--from infected cows into the brains of 14 Holstein calves in 2004 in three groups--in February, in July and in September. Some of the calves in the earliest group have apparently developed early symptoms of the disease.

Since December 2005, the institute noticed a few of the calves became groggy and jerky when walking.

However, they were uncertain about the results and sent the affected calves to the National Institute of Animal Health for dissection and analysis to confirm the infection.

The findings will be useful in developing a method of early detection while the animal is alive. They will also aid in further study of how the affected prions spread inside the cow.

Regular sampling of urine and blood of the controlled cows could also show how prions spread in an infected animal before a full-blown case is developed.

Japan has 21 reported cases of the disease since 2001.