011225 Negative Test Mad Cow Case in Japan

Tokyo - Japan's Health Ministry said that a 40-month-old dairy cow suspected of having mad cow disease had tested negative in a second, more rigorous test.

The health ministry had conducted the second test to see if the cow from Okayama, western Japan, would be the nation's fourth confirmed case after initial testing came up with a positive result on Tuesday.

Japan confirmed its first case of the brain-wasting disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), in September. Since then, two other dairy cows have tested positive.

Despite government tests for BSE on all cattle slaughtered for meat consumption in Japan since October 18, beef sales have fallen by about 50% since September.

British scientists discovered BSE in 1986 and linked the disease a decade later to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), a fatal brain affliction in humans.

In Europe, vCJD has killed about 100 people. There have been no reports of anyone who has died or fallen sick in Japan since the nation's first case of mad cow--and the first outside Europe--was reported on a farm in Chiba, near Tokyo.

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