BSE

(CIDRAP News) – Animal disease outbreaks and concerns, including avian influenza and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), are currently reducing global meat and animal exports by about one third, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – A Kansas meat company is proposing to revive its beef exports to Japan by testing all cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)—a proposal that has put the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the spot.

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Garry L. McKee is leaving his post as administrator of the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to take a position at the FSIS Technical Service Center in Omaha, Neb., USDA officials announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A pair of recent studies on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) raises warning flags about the risk of spreading the disease through blood given by people who are carrying the illness but have no symptoms.

(CIDRAP News) – The inspector general of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investigating allegations that the nation's first cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was not a "downer" when it arrived at a slaughter plant in December.

(CIDRAP News) – A US Department of Agriculture (USDA) advisory committee says it needs help resolving different assessments of the nation's risk for more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) before it can complete its recommendations for further steps to prevent the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Italian researchers this week reported a new form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, that resembles sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human brain disease that has not previously been linked to BSE.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent prediction from a panel of experts that the United States is likely to see more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) does not clash with a previous Harvard University study that described a low risk of the disease, according to a member of the panel.

(CIDRAP News) – US Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said yesterday they have completed their field investigation after tracing as many cows as possible from the original herd of the nation's first cow known to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seeking a $65 million increase in food security funds in fiscal year 2005, with more than half of the money to be used to improve capabilities for testing food for biological, chemical, and radiological contaminants.