Factbox: Mad cow cases in U.S. and Canada

(Reuters) – The following are key dates in the spread of mad cow disease in Canada and the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed on Tuesday the fourth U.S. case of mad cow, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), in a dairy cow in central California. First discovered in Great Britain in 1986, mad cow disease destroys the brain of cattle and a similar fatal disease can affect people who eat meat from infected cattle, according to scientists. More than 150 people and 184,000 cows, mainly in Britain and Europe, have died from the diseases. …

Top vet rushes to soothe mad cow fears

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hours after confirming to reporters that the United States had found its fourth-ever case of mad cow disease, John Clifford was ready to answer the world’s questions about the safety of U.S. beef. Clifford, the government’s chief veterinary officer at the agriculture department, had quickly called his counterparts in Mexico and Canada, the first and second-largest buyers of U.S. beef, to tell them about a California cow found to have an “atypical” type of the brain-wasting disease. Having taken up his post in May 2004, just six months after the first U.S. …

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