The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow’s disease) in a cow in Florida.
The cow’s meat did not enter the food chain, officials said.
It’s the atypical type of BSE, believed to very rarely occur randomly as opposed to via infection from a diseased animal or its rendered organs used in feed rations.
The spread from an infected animal is what caused a major upheaval in England, leading to the slaughter of thousands of cattle, and to a severe trading ban on Canadian cattle and beef after an infected cow was identified in Alberta.
The case in Florida is the only one since July of last year when BSE was found in a 11-year-old cow in Alabama.
