Canada can’t locate birth farm of 6th mad cow case
Dose.ca
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Tuesday it could not confirm the birth farm of Canada’s sixth mad cow case since 2003 due to a lack of information on the animal’s history.
The mature cross-bred beef cow was “at least 16 years old” when it died on a Manitoba farm earlier this summer, the federal food safety agency said in a release as it wrapped up its investigation.
The brain wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, is believed to be transmitted through contaminated feed. The affected animal was born well before the 1997 feed ban on cattle feed containing protein from rendered cattle and other ruminants.
Since cattle are most likely to contract the disease in their first year of life, the CFIA said the cow was most likely exposed to the BSE agent in 1989 or 1990 when the inclusion of meat and bone meal in cattle feed was both accepted and legal.
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