APHIS’ BSE

Surveillance Program

Q. What is the new surveillance program for

bovine spongiform encephalopathy?

A. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA)

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)

has implemented an intensive national surveillance

program for bovine spongiform encephalopathy

(BSE). The program is designed as a one–time effort

that will provide a snapshot of the domestic cattle

population to help define whether BSE is present in

the United States, and if so help calculate at what

level.

The goal of the program is to test as many cattle

from the high–risk population as possible in a 12–18

month period. In order to reach as many high–risk

cattle as possible, samples will be taken from the

farm, slaughter facilities, rendering facilities, livestock

auctions, veterinary clinics, and public health 

laboratories.

The surveillance program will also randomly 

sample apparently normal, aged animals. The 

sampling of apparently normal animals will come

from the 40 U.S. slaughter plants that handle 86 

percent of the aged cattle processed for human 

consumption each year in the United States.

Q. Why did APHIS implement this enhanced 

surveillance program?

A. After the diagnosis of a case of BSE in an 

imported animal, USDA adopted several new public

health safeguards to bolster U.S. protections and

encourage trading partners to recognize the minimal

BSE risk presented by U.S. beef. The goal of the

enhanced surveillance program is to provide 

consumers, trading partners, and industry increased

assurances about animal health, specifically whether

BSE exists in the U.S. cattle population and if so, at

what level.

Q. How will the testing be conducted?

A. USDA personnel will collect samples from 

high–risk cattle and send the samples to an existing

network of state and federal laboratories approved to

conduct rapid-testing for BSE. If the sample is 

negative, no further testing will be conducted. If the

sample is inconclusive, confirmatory testing will be

conducted at APHIS’ National Veterinary Service

Laboratories (NVSL), the national BSE reference 

laboratory.

Q. What is an inconclusive result?

A. Inconclusive results are test results for which a

negative result cannot be determined using a single

test assay. Such results are not unexpected and are

a normal component of most screening tests. These

tests are designed to be extremely sensitive so as to

detect any sample that could possibly be positive. An

inconclusive sample would undergo confirmatory

testing using immunohistochemistry (IHC), which is

recognized internationally as the gold–standard for

BSE testing, or other confirmatory tests.

Q. What if additional cases of BSE are identified?

A. There is a possibility that the enhanced 

surveillance program will identify additional cases of

BSE. If 268,500 animals are sampled, APHIS could

detect BSE at a rate of 1 in 10 million adult cattle at a

99 percent confidence level assuming that all of the

positives are in the targeted high–risk popoluation. In

other words, the enhanced program could detect

BSE even if there were only five positive animals the

targeted popolulation in the entire country.

If additional cases of BSE are identified in the

United States, the cattle owners would be compensated for any cattle taken as a result of the traceback/traceforward investigations. Based on what we

know about transmission of BSE, APHIS would not

be depopulating an entire herd. APHIS will be 

looking for individual animals that may have been

exposed at a young age to the same feed as an

affected animal. Any quarantine of affected animals

would be temporary and losses due to the 

investigation would be reimbursed.

USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS) have strong safeguards in

place to prevent the spread of BSE in the United

States. Since 1989, USDA has banned the import of

live ruminants and most ruminant products from the

United Kingdom and other countries having BSE.

HHS prohibited the use of most mammalian protein

in the manufacture of animal feed intended for cows

and other ruminants.

Several safeguards are also in place to protect

public health. Most importantly, USDA has taken

action to ensure that the tissues associated with BSE

from animals considered most likely to have the 

disease have been banned from the human food

chain. USDA has also made sweeping changes in

slaughter and processing establishments that further

reduce any risk to public health.

Factsheet

Veterinary Services June 2004

APHIS
Q. What can APHIS’ partners do to help?

A. APHIS will build upon established partnerships

with State animal health officials and many different

segments of industry to obtain as many samples as

possible from the targeted high–risk cattle population.

Samples will be collected from any of the following

locations:

• State or Federally inspected slaughter 

establishments

• Custom–exempt slaughter establishments

• Farms

• Rendering facilities

• Veterinary diagnostic laboratories

• Animal feed slaughter facilities (pet food plants)

• Public health laboratories

• Veterinary clinics

APHIS needs cooperation from its many partners

in this intensive surveillance program. To reach our

goal, it is essential that animals identified as high–risk

cattle are reported in a timely fashion so that viable

samples can be collected.

To report high–risk animals, call APHIS’ toll–free

number 1–866–536–7593. You will be connected to

the Area Veterinarian in Charge and given instructions

on how to proceed.

Q. What are high–risk animals?

A. Experience in Europe has shown that testing 

high–risk cattle is the method most likely to identify

BSE if it is present. Therefore, USDA has tailored its

surveillance program to collect the majority of 

samples from the following categories:

• Nonambulatory cattle;

• Cattle exhibiting signs of a central nervous system

disorder, such as staggering, excess 

nervousness, or apprehension;

• Cattle exhibiting other signs that may be 

associated with BSE, such as emaciation or 

injury; and

• Dead cattle.

USDA personnel will also sample all cattle 

condemned on ante–mortem inspection by USDA’s

Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Q. Where can individuals get more information?

A. More information on the BSE surveillance program

is available online at

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/bse.html.

United States Department of Agriculture • Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service • Safeguarding American Agriculture

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apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille,

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Center at (202) 720–2600 (voice and TDD).

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Civil Rights, Room 326–W, Whitten Building, 1400 Independence

Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250–9410 or call (202) 720–5964

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employer.