Return of the Mad Cow Diesase

Return of the Mad Cow Disease

By:Briana Keo-Williams

The cow and isn't infected with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Imagine your child or sibling laying in a hospital bed on the verge of death just because they ate a some tainted beef. Mad cow disease has been found in a Central Valley bovine.The cow"was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health," said John Clifford, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief veterinarian.This cow was a dairy cow and mad cow disease cannot be passed down through milk. Central Valley assured the public that they will be testing/tracing every cow from the same parents and from the same area. Unlike the scare in England in 1922 it wasn’t from cow feed that was made from ground cow spinal cords in the feed but from a rare spontaneous case.  "If it turns out this cow is less than 14 years old, it proves my biggest concern: Cattle feed is still not protected from mad cow," Michael Hanson said."We still allow risky practices. You can't feed cows to cows directly. But you can feed cows to pigs and chickens and then feed them to cows." The USDA (United States department of agriculture) tests 40,000 cows every year for mad cow and in 2011 there was only 29 cases worldwide.Since 2003 Mad cow has been popping up all over the world but never in extreme case unlike in 1992 where 37,311 cases were found.

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