The USDA said in a statement that the animal “never entered the butchering channels and posed no threat to the food supply or human health in the United States.”
She added that the United States has a “low-risk case” of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, as the neurological disease is officially called, and “we do not anticipate any commercial implications as a result of this finding.”
Mad cow disease can cause fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease if contaminated meat is eaten.
This atypical variant sporadically infects older cows, while the classic form of the disease spreads when farmers feed their herds meat and bones from infected animals.
The classic form of mad cow disease poses a greater threat to humans.
This is the seventh time mad cow disease has been discovered in the United States in the past 20 years, and all but one were atypical, officials say.
Previous cases of mad cow disease in the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe and Japan have caused billions of dollars in losses in the global food trade.
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