Intensive mad-cow testing to begin for Washington cattle

By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The one-time, intensive program, which kicks off Tuesday, aims to test at least 220,000 animals nationwide over the next 12 to 18 months.

Agriculture Department officials say they wouldn't be surprised to find a small number of cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the scientific name for the disease first detected in this country in December in a cow slaughtered near Yakima.

"It's important to acknowledge that, in fact, it is possible we will find an additional BSE-positive cow," Ron DeHaven, the agency's chief veterinarian, said last week. "If this weren't a concern, we obviously would not be undertaking the huge surveillance effort that we are."

Relying on rapid tests that give results in 24 hours or less, the new program will screen more than 10 times the number of animals tested in 2003.

But some experts question whether the agency will be able to meet its target numbers without offering cash incentives to get farmers and ranchers to provide dead or sick animals for testing.

So far this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has tested fewer than 4,000 animals a month nationwide. Plans now call for nearly 20,000 tests a month.

"The major concern for a lot of people is how they will get access to that population of cattle," said Mo Salman, a mad-cow surveillance expert at Colorado State University.

Consumer groups and the Japanese government, which suspended imports of U.S. beef after the December mad-cow case, continue to push for even more testing.

"You only have absolute safety if you test all animals that can be tested and remove any that test positive from the human and animal food supply," said Michael Hansen, of Consumers Union.

Even the expanded testing program will examine less than 1 percent of the 35 million cattle slaughtered in the United States each year.
 
But DeHaven said it will target the animals most likely to carry the disease and should be able to detect the disease at a level of one case in 10 million cattle.

The new program begins at a time when USDA's credibility has been undermined by two recent incidents: A Texas animal that showed symptoms similar to mad-cow disease was not tested; and it was revealed that the Agriculture Department secretly allowed imports of Canadian hamburger and beef despite a ban imposed after that country's first mad-cow case last year.

Downers to be focus of new testing

The infected cow near Yakima also was born in Canada and almost certainly contracted the disease there. USDA is still investigating whether the state cow was a downer — an animal too sick or injured to walk.

Downers will continue to be a focus of the new testing program, along with animals over the age of 30 months with possible mad-cow symptoms, and those that die on the farm. With an incubation period of five years or more, the disease is rarely detectable in younger cattle, USDA officials say.

Downers were banned after the state mad-cow case, which means they no longer show up at slaughter plants. Instead, USDA veterinarians will now collect most of their samples at rendering plants, which convert dead animals into meat and bone meal and other products.

Dennis Luckey, executive vice president for Baker Commodities, said the agency's goal is to take brain samples from 5,000 animals at each of the company's two collection centers in Washington.

The samples will be sent to Washington State University's Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Pullman, which will process up to 25,000 samples from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana over the next year, said lab director Terry McElwain.

The quick tests are expected to yield some false positives, so any suspect results will be double-checked with additional tests at the USDA's national laboratory.

Rendering plants will not process the carcasses until the test results are returned, Luckey said.

USDA to cover costs

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will cover the entire cost of the testing program, which includes paying the fee renderers charge farmers to haul away a dead animal, said USDA spokeswoman Andrea McNally.

That would be a powerful incentive to get farmers and ranchers to participate in the program, said Andy Werkhoven, a Snohomish County dairy farmer. With hauling fees ranging between $50 to $100 or more, Werkhoven generally buries dead animals on his property.

"It would be sweet if they paid for hauling them away," he said. "But I've yet to have anybody call me up and say, 'We'll come and take them.' "

McNally said the USDA will soon launch an outreach effort to explain the new system to farmers and ranchers.

But Salman, the Colorado State University expert, said experience in Europe shows the agency may have to go further and pay for carcasses or ailing animals to get enough animals to make the testing program valid.

"I understand they might say: Why do we have to pay for a dead animal?" he said. "But I see it as a piece of information that is so valuable to our nation's interest."

Getting access to high-risk animals is also complicated because many farmers are now sending their older dairy cattle to slaughter sooner, so they don't risk losing all profit if the animal becomes a downer.

"If a cow looks at you cross-eyed, if it looks like she's going to get sick, you probably want to sell her before she does," Werkhoven said.

Some of those animals will be tested, under an arm of the program that will target 20,000 randomly selected older animals at slaughter plants specializing in dairy cows.

That includes Stanwood-based Schenk Packing, where manager Kim Tonheim said USDA plans to sample about 200 cows in the coming year. The plant normally processes about 200 animals a day.

"I think it's going to work just fine," said Tonheim, who will hold the carcasses in a refrigerated locker pending test results.

"My only concern is how long the test will take, and they've told me we'll have our results back in 24 hours."

An international panel of experts, convened by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to evaluate the government response to America's first mad-cow case, recommended the expanded testing as the only way to determine whether the disease has spread through the cattle population.

The panel said that since mad-cow disease is present in Canada, it's almost certainly in U.S. herds as well, though probably at a very low level.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com