Lax testing standards for North American cattle could be masking a wider contagion

Most Canadians and Americans believe that their governments have taken the necessary measures to stop the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the scientific name for mad cow disease. For a decade the official line of both governments and the corporate meat and livestock industry has been that the disease could not occur in either country because of extensive safeguards such as the “1997 firewall feed ban” that officials claimed prevented the feeding of cattle protein to cattle, the means of infection for the deadly brain disease.
However, the regulations adopted by the United States and Canada in 1997 were too little and too late. For example, it is still legal in both countries to wean calves on formula containing cattle blood as a protein source.
Why have only three mad cows been discovered to date in North America? Both Canada and the United States have increased the number of cattle tested by each government for the disease, but the testing remains woefully inadequate by the standards of the European Union nations and Japan.