July 20, 2006

USDA to cut down on mad cow surveillance

The USDA said it would announce on Thursday (Jul 20) plans to scale back its mad cow surveillance programme.

The move would reflect the low level of mad cow disease in the US, a USDA source said.

Although testing would be at lower levels, it would still be at 10 times higher than internationally recommended standards.

Testing began in June 2004 to gauge the prevalence of mad cow disease in the United States after the first case of mad cow disease in the country was found in 2003.

The programme, which was to run for 12 to 18 months, has tested more than 759,000 animals and was responsible for finding two of the three cases of the disease in the US.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in April that mad cow disease affects fewer than one in 1 million US adult cattle, giving the US a low occurrence of the disease. That occurrence is also likely to decline.

However, consumer groups said the programme should be continued as any move to end or scale it down would send the wrong message to Americans and US beef importers such as Japan and South Korea.