News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture is banning the use of "downer" cattle for human food and taking several other new steps to keep beef products contaminated with the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) out of the food supply, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – The Washington state cow announced by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Dec 23 to be a "presumptive positive" bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) case, was born in April 1997, before the August 1997 Food and Drug Administration ban on feeding ruminant-derived meat and bone meal supplements to cattle went into effect.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials took pains to assure the public today that the risk of contamination in the US beef supply is very low following yesterday's announcement that the nation's first apparent case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, had turned up in Washington state.

(CIDRAP News) – Saying the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canadian cattle is minimal, the US Department of Agriculture has proposed to reopen the US border to live Canadian cattle for the first time since BSE was discovered in one Alberta cow last May.

(CIDRAP News) – Cattle that were vaccinated against Escherichia coli O157:H7 in trials the past 2 years showed significant reductions in prevalence of the pathogen, according to a Canadian company that hopes to market the vaccine as a food safety measure.

(CIDRAP News) – In a new report on the epidemiology of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the World Health Organization (WHO) affirms that the disease is spread by respiratory droplets, not by airborne particles.

The 35-page report, issued Oct 17, also says the risk of transmission to others peaks when a person has been sick for about 10 days and that children are rarely affected by SARS.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent finding of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a 23-month-old bull in Japan suggests that Japan may have more cases of the disease than previously suspected, according to a University of Minnesota expert on the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Mexico closed its border to livestock from the United States last week because of concern that a herd of US cattle bound for Mexico had foot-and-mouth disease, but the border was quickly reopened when the disease was found to be a relatively harmless look-alike.

(CIDRAP News) – Some of the world's leading experts on biological weapons and public health will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, Oct 21 and 22 for an international conference on the threat of a bioterrorist attack involving smallpox.

(CIDRAP News) – Worries about the ability to quickly detect a return of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and about hospitals' ability to handle a large number of patients were two leading issues at a recent national meeting on SARS preparedness, according to a participating physician.