CHICAGO
(Reuters) - Test results on brain tissue from 17 Texas cattle that
were imported from Germany in 1996 showed none of the animals had
mad cow disease, the Texas Animal Health Commission said last week.
The cattle
had been among the last survivors of several hundred head that
arrived in the United States from Europe before the U.S. government
enacted an import ban on such animals in 1997.
The ban is
intended to prevent the introduction of mad cow, or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), in the United States. BSE has never been
diagnosed in the United States.
As with all
cattle imported from Europe before the ban, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture had been monitoring the Texas herd for several
years, USDA spokeswoman Hallie Pickhardt said Monday.
``The cattle
had been under quarantine since before 1997,'' she said.
The Texas
animals were euthanized at a Texas A&M University facility
in early April, and tissue samples were tested at a U.S. Department
of Agriculture veterinary laboratory in Ames, Iowa, the Texas
agency said in a statement on Friday. The remaining carcasses
were incinerated and did not enter the food chain.
Pickhardt
confirmed on Monday that the test results on all the cattle came
back negative from the Ames facility on April 18.
The USDA continues
to track all European cattle that predate the import ban, and
only 10 such animals are still alive in the United States, Pickhardt
said Monday. Four are in Vermont, three remain in Texas, two are
in Minnesota and one is in Illinois, according to information
on the USDA's Web site.
The rest died
of natural causes or were purchased by the government and destroyed.
The USDA has negotiated to purchase the remaining cattle from
their owners, Pickhardt said.
``We continue
to keep watch over them, and an ongoing offer is on the table
to purchase the cattle at any time the owners would like to do
so,'' she said.
U.S. officials
monitor these animals because they were in Europe at a time when
BSE was thought to be spread through cattle feed containing byproducts
from infected animals. However, none has shown any signs of mad
cow disease.
The National
Cattlemen's Beef Association provided extra money in addition
to the USDA offer to purchase the Texas cattle, said Rick McCarty,
a spokesman for the trade group.
He said the
NCBA stepped in ``so we can be assured the (BSE) agent was not
in this country.''
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