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The U.S. Department of Agriculture [4] announced that an "animal tested 'inconclusive' for mad cow disease [5] in two rapid screening tests"; the results of further testing will be released next week. The vice-president of BioRad, the company that manufactures the rapid tests, said, "After two inconclusive results, you have a much higher rate of confirming [mad cow disease [6]]." BioRad estimates the chances of getting two false positives are 1 in 240,000. Cattle trading and fast-food chain and meat industry stocks slumped, but "consumer analysts said a second confirmed case probably wouldn't substantially damp domestic beef demand." Marketing executive Harry Balzer said [7], "You're going to need a widespread outbreak for this to have an impact on consumption."
Links:
[1] http://dev.prwatch.org/users/6/diane-farsetta
[2] http://dev.prwatch.org/topics/environment/agriculture/mad-cow-disease
[3] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fdev.prwatch.org%2Fspin%2F2004%2F11%2F3051%2Fanother-mad-cow-just-turkey-day&linkname=Another%20Mad%20Cow%2C%20Just%20Before%20Turkey%20Day%3F
[4] http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Department_of_Agriculture
[5] http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Mad_cow_disease
[6] http://www.prwatch.org/books/madcow.html
[7] http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110078976557078011,00.html?mod=health%5Fhs%5Fpolicy%5Flegislation
[8] http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28208/story.htm