I can't find any stories online about the ban being proposed by Japan and South Korea, it seems as if CNN is ahead in breaking the story. Anyway.....
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/23/mad.cow/index.html
First U.S. case of mad cow disease
Farm in Washington state under quarantine
Tuesday, December 23, 2003 Posted: 8:13 PM EST (0113 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The first apparent case of mad cow disease in the United States has been discovered in Washington state, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday.
Two tests have already been carried out on the cow enabling Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to call the case a "presumptive positive" and a sample is being flown to England for a third test to absolutely confirm the case.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is linked to a similar form of the incurable and fatal brain-wasting disease in humans, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD. There have been a small number of cases of vCJD reported worldwide, primarily in the United Kingdom, in people who ate BSE-contaminated meat.
Officials believe that meat from the Washington animal left a processing plant, Veneman said, and an investigation is under way to determine if any had reached store shelves.
However, that does not mean the public is in danger, Veneman said.
"One important thing to remember is that muscle cuts of meat have almost no risk," Veneman said, emphasizing that the disease is typically spread by consumption of brain or nerve tissue, which did not enter the food system. "I know of no science to show that you can transmit BSE from muscle cuts of meat."
The sick animal came from a farm in Mabton, Washington, about 40 miles southeast of Yakima. It was a so-called "downer" animal, meaning it was unable to walk when it reached the slaughterhouse, which under USDA rules triggers automatic testing.
Veneman said the cow "tested presumptive positive for BSE."
"While this would represent the first finding of BSE in the United States we have worked hard to ensure our response is swift and effective," she said.
Separate rounds of tests, including what Veneman termed the "gold standard" procedure for detecting BSE, done at a USDA facility in Ames, Iowa, led her to term the case "presumptive positive" for BSE.
The sample was being flown by military aircraft to the United Kingdom for a final round of testing, Veneman said. Those results are expected in three to five days, she said.
The USDA has placed the farm under quarantine.
Mad cow disease first appeared in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s and resulted in the slaughter of millions of cattle.
BSE spread across the European cattle industry after it first developed in the UK in the mid-1980s, but the first case in North America appeared in the Canadian province of Alberta in May. Eighteen farms were quarantined, but no additional cases were discovered.
The infectious agent takes at least six to eight years to cause symptoms in cows, meaning that the infected cow may have spread the disease to other cattle during that time.
A critic of cattle industry safety standards said the current case is likely "the tip of an invisible iceberg."
"There are more cases, no doubt about it," said John Stauber, author of Mad Cow, USA.
Accusing Veneman of underplaying the severity of Tuesday's finding, Stauber said the fact it took so long to find a case only underscores a weakness in the testing system.
"In Europe and Britain, they test virtually every beef animal for mad cow," Stauber said. "That's what we should be doing in the United States."
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