2nd mad cow case suspected in US

Agriculture Department officials say a second case of mad cow disease may have occurred in the United States.

Declining to elaborate, officials they said they would need a week of tests on brain tissue samples from the suspicious cattle before they could officially confirm the case.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), attacks the animal's nervous system. People who eat the tainted meat can develop a human equivalent, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is usually fatal.

"Early this

morning, we were notified that an inconclusive BSE test result was received on a rapid screening test used as part of our enhanced BSE surveillance program. The inconclusive result does not mean we have found another case of BSE in this country", said Andrea Morgan, Associate Deputy Administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, in a press release.

The first confirmed case in the US was found December 23 in a cow which was originally brought from Canada. Subsequently, nearly 30 countries banned imports of US beef.