NYT: Results Negative in 3rd Possible Case of Mad Cow

[DeepModem Mom]

Results Negative in 3rd Possible Case of Mad Cow
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Published: August 4, 2005


A third cow suspected of having mad cow disease does not on closer examination appear to be infected, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday.

After tests conducted last week yielded ambiguous results about whether the 12-year-old cow was infected with the brain-wasting disease, tissue samples from the animal were retested by the department's laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and by experts at the Central Reference Laboratory for mad cow disease in Weybridge, England.

Both tests came back negative for the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy or B.S.E., said Dr. John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian....

***

Two cases of mad cow disease have been confirmed in the United States. The first, involving a cow born in Canada, was discovered in Washington State in December 2003. The second occurred in a cow born in Texas that died in November. The cow's brain was not tested for the disease until June, when tests in England confirmed the diagnosis. Tests conducted earlier in the United States had been negative....

***

The suspect cow died on the farm where it was raised after complications from giving birth. The farm's location has not been released. The cow, which was destroyed, died in April, but the veterinarian who took its brain tissue forgot to send the sample for testing until last month.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/health/04cow.html

[daleo]

1. I doubt the test was really definitive

They did everything in their power to make sure they couldn't get a positive, definitive result.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. The veterinarian forgot to send the tissue in for three months?

There was the potential for an infected herd and he just forgets to follow up?

[kestrel91316]

3. And he pickled the sample, too (not allowed anymore)

The "pickling" happened while it was still legal to do this, but they have stopped doing it because it apparently can interfere with results (maybe it did so here).

As a vet who has worked in a mixed practice before, I can see the vet in this case getting exhausted and overwhelmed and simply forgetting to submit the sample. Not saying I would forget, as I am particularly interested in zoonoses and public health, but he is only human and I don't necessarily see a plot to hide a case of BSE. Maybe just ineptness.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks for a professional opinion, kestrel! nt

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. I wasn't implying a cover up on his part

I was expressing my honest shock that it was overlooked. I thought a potential BSE case would tend to stay in the front of a persons mind.

I live in cattle country and this is a huge topic here among the large animal vets and ranchers. To be fair, for all I know this vet may be in a region that is predominately horses or goats or any number of other animals.

[kestrel91316]

6. ALSO, maybe he does this sort of sampling a lot

Maybe there are a lot of downers for some reason, and this one just slipped his mind.

I know that I would have personally driven it to Ames, Iowa and wanted to watch the testing process and drive the lab vets crazy with my excitement, but that's just me.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. That's a valid point

He could send off several samples a year and this one just was skipped over by accident.

Also, they refer to the cow as living on a farm rather than a ranch. It could just be an error in wording or it could be a dairy farm. If that's the case it may not have seemed quite as pressing to him now that they can no longer use the downers for meat processing and BSE prions aren't known to be present in milk. If there were little to no threat of the public being infected I can understand how it might slip to the back of his mind more easily.