‘Mad Cow’ Disease Detected in Germany

Health and agriculture officials disclosed Friday that selective testing of beef cattle for so-called mad cow disease has turned up two infected animals from Germany, shocking this nation of food purists into action to demand an immediate ban on cattle feed containing animal parts and mandatory testing of older cows before slaughter.

The first two cases of infection of German-bred cows immediately precipitated official intervention in this most populous and economically powerful state on the Continent and are likely to accelerate moves to halt the spread of mad cow disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, within the 15-nation European Union.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, at an EU summit with Balkan leaders in Zagreb, Croatia, urged lawmakers here to urgently pass a total ban on animal bone meal in cattle feed and predicted that action could come as soon as Monday. He also appealed to fellow EU leaders to invoke a Europe-wide ban to more effectively combat the spread of the livestock illness, which can trigger a human variant known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease if contaminated beef is consumed.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which damages the brain, has killed more than 80 people since it was linked to mad cow disease in 1996, and no cure for it is known.

Both instances of infected German cattle were detected in testing before the cows were slaughtered: one on a farm in the northern agricultural stronghold of Schleswig-Holstein state and the other in a German-bred cow from the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt exported to Portugal’s Azores islands two years ago. Both animals were destroyed, and the farms from which they originated were placed under strict quarantine.

In the Schleswig-Holstein case, in which the infected cow was discovered by testing at a slaughterhouse, all 153 other cattle on the premises the same day have also been isolated for testing, state Environment Minister Klaus Mueller said.

“All this smooth talk about Germany being BSE-free must come to an end now,” declared Health Minister Andrea Fischer of the Greens party. “We must immediately and with all force begin testing as many animals as possible before slaughter.”

German Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke has backed an EU initiative to require, as of mid-2001, BSE testing of cattle born before 1998--animals old enough for slaughter. He said earlier this week that Germany would voluntarily test 60,000 head of livestock in the meantime. Germany has about 5.4 million beef cattle born before 1998, he added.

BSE testing costs about $85 per head and could add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of meat production each year, Funke said.

In a story on recent discoveries of BSE in French cattle, Germany’s widely read Stern magazine wrote that similar cases were not turning up here only because testing was so limited and sporadic. The article also accused EU agricultural officials of foot-dragging on efforts to ensure that animal feed is protected from contamination.

Attention to the mounting mad cow disease scandal had until now focused on the cases that turned up in Britain several years ago and in France in the past few weeks. But a Spanish cow was found to be contaminated this week, and the latest discoveries from Germany could confront this nation of 82 million people with devastating economic and health threats.