A cow suspected of having mad cow disease has tested negative for the deadly ailment according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Agriculture Department ran its own test at a lab in Ames, Iowa while an internationally respected lab in Weybridge, England also came back negative.
Jon Clifford, the chief veterinarian of the Agriculture Department released a statement saying, 'Needless to say, we are very pleased with these results. I do want to emphasize that the most important protections for human and animal health are our interlocking food-safety protocols.'
Earlier preliminary tests on the animal were 'non-definitive' so further tests were ordered. The animal in question died on the farm where it had lived and did not enter the food chain. A local veterinarian removed the brain for testing after the cow was burned and buried.
Thus far, there have been two confirmed cases of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, in the United States.
Humans who eat animals contaminated with BSE develop a variant of the disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease which is almost always fatal in humans. Approximately 150 people died from mad cow in the 1980s and 1990s in Great Britain.
When the first case was confirmed in the United States, many nations immediately stopped importing American beef. The Agriculture Department and the beef industry are hoping the negative test results will prevent that from happening in this instance.
