Canada confirms new case of mad cow disease04.16.2006 http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2006/04/16/afx2673045.html OTTAWA (AFX) - Canada's Food Inspection Agency said it has confirmed a new case of mad cow disease in the province of British Columbia. The latest case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) surfaced in a six-year-old dairy cow in the Fraser Valley on the Pacific coast during a national surveillance program. But Canada officials said beef for human consumption remained safe because the BSE-infected parts of cattle do not enter the food chain. 'This finding does not affect the safety of Canadian beef. Tissues in which BSE is known to concentrate in infected animals are removed from all cattle slaughtered in Canada for domestic and international human consumption. No part of this animal entered the human food or animal feed systems,' said health authorities in a statement. It was the fifth case of mad cow detected in Canada since 2003 and the second this year. The cases provoked US and Japanese embargoes on imports of Canadian cows and beef, costing Canada's cattle farmers some 6 bln usd before they were lifted last year. Canadian authorities said they would conduct a thorough investigation into the source of the new infection, which comes after controls were tightened on cattle feed, to which earlier cases were sourced. 'This animal, a six-year-old dairy cow, developed BSE after the implementation of Canada's feed ban,' the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said. 'Investigators will pay particular attention to the feed to which the animal may have been exposed early in its life, when cattle are most susceptible to BSE. The CFIA is collecting records of feed purchased by and used on the animal's birth farm,' the agency said. Since the discovery of Canada's first BSE case in 2003, some 100,000animals have been tested in a surveillance program, which targets the animals most at risk from the affliction. Mad cow disease has been connected to the fatal brain-wasting diseasein humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* When you meat eaters are ready to transition to vegetarian, vegan or raw vegan check out http://www.TheRawVegan.com