January 31, 2001
		U.S. Cattle Quarantined For Possible Mad Cow Exposure Cattle rancher K.R. Brown with some of the 1200 cattle suspected of Mad Cow disease U.S. regulators announced on Thursday, January 25, that a herd of approximately 1200 cattle in Texas had been placed under quarantine as a precaution while officials probe whether possibly contaminated feed may have exposed them to mad cow disease. The feed mill, Purina Mills, recalled 22 tons of feed that contained ruminant meat and bone meal; these products have been banned for use in cattle feed since 1997, but a recent report disclosed that feed mills are not fully complying with federal guidelines. See related story. "There's a possibility that bone meal derived from U.S. cattle may have been mixed with a feed supply and later fed to cattle," FDA spokesman Lawrence Bachorick said. The is the first time the FDA has quarantined cattle for possible violations of mad cow safeguards. According to Beverly Boyd of the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Purina Mills plant may have mixed the banned animal products into a feed supplement that was placed on the wrong truck. Ruminant by-products are banned for cows or sheep feed, but commonly used in pig and chicken feed. "This [quarantine] just happened to be a matter of timing. But as of last night, we are no longer using it,'' said Max Fisher, a spokesman for Purina Mills, the nation's largest maker of livestock feed. "It's a voluntary move on our behalf and takes us down to a zero risk factor for a misformulation in the future." There has been a link established between cows eating feed that contains the meat and bone meal of other ruminants and the spread of mad cow disease. There has also been a link established between mad cow disease and the always fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has been determined to have killed more than 80 people in Europe, mostly in Britain. Upon disclosure of the quarantine, McDonald's shares closed more than 4 percent lower, and livestock futures fell on the stock market. Additionally, beef sales have plummeted in Europe.