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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

> USDA announces reduced mad cow testing   
>
> The U.S.  Department of Agriculture announced Thursday it will   
> soon reduce  its testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy --   
> mad cow  disease. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said his   
> department  will transition to an ongoing BSE surveillance   
> program that  reflects the extremely low prevalence of the   
> disease in the  United States. "It's time that our surveillance   
> efforts reflect  what we now know is a very, very low level of   
> BSE in the United  States," said Johanns. "This ongoing surveillance   
> program will  maintain our ability to detect BSE, provide assurance   
> that our  interlocking safeguards are successfully preventing BSE,   
> while  continuing to exceed science-based international guidelines."    
> The new testing program will sample approximately 40,000 animals    
> each year, as compared with the more than 759,000 cattle tested    
> since June 2004 when enhanced testing started.  In April,  the   
> USDA released an analysis of seven years of its BSE  surveillance   
> data. The analysis concluded the prevalence of BSE  in the United   
> States is less than one case per million adult  cattle.