MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Texas: 29 cattle sacrificed and tested for BSE

Twenty nine livestock from a Texas herd have been sacrificed and Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis, BSE, “mad cow” tests will be done on samples, reported the United States Department of Agriculture.

Investigations are on going in United States to try to identify descendents or cross breeds born in the same year as the 12 year old Brahma beef cow, which reacted positively to BSE tests done in Britain and US.

USDA reported that last week 29 cattle from the herd had been sacrificed and tissue samples sent for testing: if the "quick test" shows evidence of "mad cow" then additional tests will be undertaken.

"When we have information available we'll release it", said Ed Lloyd USDA spokesperson, who added that an inventory of animals from the same family and which could be of interest are being investigated.

The original cow which later proved to have BSE spent all her life in the same Texas ranch and was sold last November 11. However four days later en route to the abattoir she died and samples for an autopsy of her brains were taken.

The "quick test" gave positive; but more sophisticated tests proved negative, and a third test ordered by an independent USDA office made public last June 24 was positive, both in US labs and in the United Kingdom.

USDA has since changed the BSE testing system.

The Brahma cow from Texas is the first genuinely US "mad cow" case, since a previous situation in a dairy farm in the state of Washington proved to be an imported cow from Canada which apparently was given infected food.