010395 Vermont Sheep are Killed in Iowa

Ames, Iowa - All 260 Vermont sheep suspected of having been exposed to a form of mad cow disease have been killed, and tissue samples were being tested Tuesday at a U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinary laboratory.

Before the flocks were sent to Iowa, four sheep tested positive in Vermont for transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE, a family of diseases that includes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE ), or mad cow disease, and scrapie, a common sheep disease that doesn't affect humans.

Scientists at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory here said they were running a series of blood and tissue tests on the carcasses. They said they would know within two or three months how many of the sheep were carrying TSE.

The East Friesian milking sheep, seized from two farms in Vermont, were imported before an epidemic of mad cow disease prompted a ban on European livestock in 1997. The animals were thought to have been exposed to contaminated feed.

An epidemic of mad cow disease devastated the British beef industry in the 1990s. Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of a human form of BSE since 1995, but no cases have been confirmed in the United States.

The USDA also said Tuesday it was tracking a handful of cattle imported from Britain before the 1997 ban. None of the animals had shown any illness, said USDA spokesman Jim Rogers.

“It's my understanding they are going to be bought and destroyed, but none of them have ever entered the human or animal food chain,” said Ed Curlett, a USDA spokesman.

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