- Story Ideas - Send Corrections WASHINGTON — The first new case
of mad cow disease in the U.S. since 2006 has been discovered in
a dairy cow in California, but health authorities said Tuesday
the animal never was a threat to the nation’s food supply. The
infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the U.S., was found
as part of an Agriculture Department surveillance program that
tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease. No
meat from the cow was bound for the food supply, said John
Clifford, the department’s chief veterinary officer. “There is
really no cause for alarm here with regard to this animal,”
Clifford told reporters at a hastily convened press conference.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is
fatal to cows and can cause a fatal human brain disease in
people who eat tainted beef. The World Health Organization has
said that tests show that humans cannot be infected by drinking
milk from BSE-infected animals. In the wake of a massive
outbreak in Britain that p