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BSE (Known as mad cow disease)
Washington Firm Recalls Beef Products Following
Presumptive BSE Determination

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23, 2003 - Verns Moses Lake Meat is voluntarily recalling approximately 10,410 pounds of raw beef that may have been exposed to tissues containing the infectious agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The beef subject to this Class II recall was produced on Dec. 9 and was shipped to several establishments where it was further processed. FSIS is continuing its investigation to ensure that all distribution of the beef products is correctly identified.

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Consumer Questions and Answers About BSE

What is "Mad Cow Disease" (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)?
Mad Cow Disease is the layperson's name for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), a transmissible, slowly progressive, degenerative, fatal disease affecting the central nervous system of adult cattle. There is no evidence to date of BSE affecting U.S. cattle, * despite an aggressive surveillance program under which nearly 20,000 animals were tested last year.

Does BSE affect humans?
BSE is a disease that affects cattle. However, there is a disease similar to BSE called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), or vCJD, which is found in humans. There have been a small number of cases of vCJD reported, primarily in the United Kingdom, occurring in people who consumed beef that may have been contaminated. (As of May 2003, there have been a total of approximately 139 cases of vCJD worldwide.) There is strong scientific evidence (epidemiological and laboratory) that the agent that causes BSE in cattle is the agent that causes vCJD in people. The one reported case of vCJD in the United States was from a young women that contracted the disease while residing in the UK. The symptoms appeared years later after the young woman moved to the U.S.

The disease, vCJD, which primarily affects younger persons, is very hard to diagnose until the disease has nearly run its course. In its early stages, the disease may manifest itself through neurologic symptoms, but it is not until the latter stages of the disease that brain abnormalities detectable by x-ray or MRI can be seen.

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