The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that a 6 year old mixed breed beef cow in Florida tested positive for an atypical case of B.S.E. The Ag Department say the animal never entered slaughter channels and at no point posed a threat to the food supply or human health in the U.S. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard says his group continues to back testing for BSE and removal of specified risk materials.
He doesn’t expect much of a trade impact from this case.
Bullard says this case heightens the importance of keeping BSE mitigation measures in place and also making sure the feed ban is in use for other cases of BSE.
The Florida case is the sixth positive case of BSE in the United States since 2003 and the first since an 11 year old cow tested positive in Alabama in 2017.
