(JP)Bones of mad cow disease suspect in animal feed

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010916a5.htm

 

Bones of mad cow disease suspect in animal feed

 

The bones of a milk cow suspected of having contracted

mad cow disease have been processed into meat-and-bone

feed for chickens and pigs, according to the

agriculture ministry.

 

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry had

earlier said that all the meat and bones of the

5-year-old Holstein dairy cow in Shiroi, Chiba

Prefecture, had been burned after it was slaughtered

in August.

 

Ministry officials said Friday, however, that about

100 tons of meat-and-bone feed into which the bones of

the cow had been mixed are actually being stored at a

feed maker in Tokushima Prefecture, while some 50 tons

are being kept at a plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

 

None of the feed has been shipped to the market yet,

they added.

 

The ministry was alerted by information from the

Tokushima Prefectural Government and confirmed the

facts by checking distribution records, the officials

said.

 

On Monday, the farm ministry announced that the cow,

which was born in Hokkaido and was bred there until

three years ago, was suspected of being infected with

the malady -- the first known case of mad cow disease

in Japan.

 

Earlier Friday, the farm ministry said a nationwide

survey of dairy farms, launched after the discovery of

the Chiba case, found that 470,730 dairy and meat cows

are not infected.

 

The findings are based on inspections of some 7,900 of

the nation's 140,000 dairy farms. The ministry plans

to cover all 4.53 million dairy and meat cows at farms

nationwide to see if they are showing signs of

abnormalities that can be linked to mad cow disease.

 

Cows cleared of suspicion as of Friday include 37 out

of a herd of 57 in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture,

that had earlier shown symptoms, such as being unable

to stand.

 

Local public health officials have been investigating

the cows in response to a separate nationwide survey

set up by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry in

May. The remaining 20 cows are still being inspected.

 

On Thursday, the Osaka Prefectural Government

announced no infection had been found in 4,875 cows

inspected at 122 facilities in the prefecture.

 

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- or mad cow disease

-- was first identified in Britain in 1986. The

disease is thought to cause the fatal human variant

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

Cows to be rechecked

 

TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) The National Institute

of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, plans

to re-examine about 300 cows that had shown symptoms

of mad cow disease but were cleared after inspections

following a suspected case at a Chiba Prefecture farm,

institute officials said.

 

The institute under the farm ministry decided to

recheck the 300 cows, which cannot stand, using

different tests, they said Friday. Inability to stand

is a symptom of the disease.

 

The decision came after the institute failed in the

first and second inspections to detect abnormal prion

proteins in the Chiba cow, but later found that the

animal was actually infected by examining brain tissue

from it.

 

The institute decided to review prion tests conducted

on the 300 since April.

 

It plans to use another testing method in the

re-examinations and intends to finish them by the end

of September.

 

The Japan Times: Sept. 16, 2001

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