January 30, 2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer  by PHUONG CAT LE

Citizen and consumer groups say the country should target testing of younger animals - cows 20 months and older - as the best way to detect all possible cases of mad cow disease.

And Japan, the biggest buyer of U.S. beef, has said it won't lift its ban on beef imports until it sees tighter food-security measures. Japan tests all animals for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, regardless of age.

But U.S. Agriculture Department officials say there's no scientific rationale for testing all animals, and that doing so would cost too much.

"It's scientifically not necessary, not justified, and we don't want to go down that road because it diverts resources from where we really need to be putting them," USDA senior trade adviser David Hegwood said this week. He said it would cost $900 million to test about $1 billion worth of beef exports to Japan.

The agency plans to increase to 40,000 the number of animals tested for the brain-wasting illness and switch to a rapid exam that can produce results within 48 hours.

Yesterday, the Bush administration announced it would ask for $60 million in funding in the 2005 budget to address mad cow disease, including $17 million for testing and $33 million to develop a national cattle-identification system.

Because mad cow disease has an incubation period of three to eight years, it is "almost exclusively a disease of animals 30 months of age and over," said Dr. Ron DeHaven, the USDA's chief veterinarian.

Despite such assurances, nearly a dozen citizen and consumer groups want the USDA to test animals that are 20 months and older.

Critics point to cases in which BSE has been found in younger animals, and they say the agency should cast a wider net to detect BSE.

In Japan, BSE was diagnosed in animals at 21 months and 23 months. Three animals under 30 months have been diagnosed with BSE in Europe since 2001.

"What may have been missed if we stick with a 30-month cutoff?" asked Patty Lovera, deputy director of the energy and environment program at Public Citizen, a consumer-advocacy organization.

Lovera's group joined the American Public Health Association, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and others to press their case to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman earlier this month.

But even those groups disagree over whether all animals over 20 months should be tested or whether they should just be included in any increased surveillance program.

The government targets animals it believes are most at risk for BSE - those that die on the farm, exhibit signs of central nervous system disorder, are 30 months and older, or "downer" cows - animals that can't walk on their own, said Ed Curlett, spokesman with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Last year, it tested about 20,500 cattle for BSE out of about 35 million cattle slaughtered. A couple thousand animals tested were 24 to 25 months old, though the majority were over 30 months, Curlett said.

The Yakima County Holstein diagnosed with BSE was about 78 months old and was tested because it was sick when it was slaughtered Dec. 9, officials say.

An animal's age is notable because the USDA has set 30 months as a cutoff age in new rules governing slaughter and consumption of beef put into effect a week after the Holstein was diagnosed.

Certain cow parts deemed high risk - the small intestine, the head and spinal tissue - are now banned from the human food chain, though those parts from cattle younger than 30 months will still be allowed.

Safety advocates say that's still not good enough. "If there's a risk, we shouldn't have it," Lovera said.

Clive Gay, professor of veterinary clinical medicine at Washington State University, said the basis for the 30-month standard is sound because "the evidence suggests that 30 months eliminates everything if there is something, in all the surveillance that is being done."

Dr. William Hueston, who served on the international team that reviewed Canada's only BSE case, found last May, and is now reviewing the U.S. case, said tests should target those most likely at risk of BSE - what's currently being done.

"The younger we test animals, the less likely we are to find evidence even though they've been exposed," said Hueston, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Animal Health and Food Safety.

He thinks animals 60 months and older should be targeted for testing because they are most likely to have been exposed to contaminated feed - believed to be the way mad cow disease is transmitted.

But Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, noted that the USDA has shifted its own position on the age at when animals should be tested, adding "we don't understand the rationale for that."

In 2002, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a paper about the agency's current thinking about BSE that it "believes that cattle aged 24 months and older should be targeted because, based on surveillance data from Europe, most cattle that have been diagnosed with BSE have been over 24 months of age."

"Twenty-four months may be another good benchmark," DeWaal said, but "we're not comfortable with the 30 month" rule.

USDA spokesman Steve Cohen said "the thinking paper was available on the best information at the time." He said "the preponderance of evidence indicates that there's worldwide acceptance of scientific information that an animal wouldn't express this disease until 30 months."

USDA officials say the younger BSE-diagnosed animals in Europe represents two cases out of millions of animals tested since BSE was first diagnosed in 1986.

Even so, countries differ on what they do. The European Union requires all cattle over 30 months to be tested before slaughter. But Germany, France and Italy prohibit cattle over 24 months being used for consumption unless first tested for BSE.

Before the United Kingdom's 1996 ban on using animal tissue in cattle feed, there were 84 confirmed cases of BSE in cattle under 30 months, though 38 of those are estimated ages, according to the U.K. Food Inspection Agency review of BSE controls.

Since 1997, no cases have been diagnosed in cattle 30 months or younger in the United Kingdom. That suggests that "the level of exposure is getting smaller and smaller," Hueston said.

Still, consumer advocates say that if it's possible for younger animals such as the ones in Japan to contract BSE, better testing and security measures should be in place.