http://www.businessweek.com/news/2015-01-05/u-dot-s-dot-lifts-ban-on-irish-beef-15-years-after-mad-cow

U.S. Lifts Ban on Irish Beef 15 Years After Mad Cow
By Whitney McFerron January 05, 2015
Bloomberg News

The U.S., the world’s biggest beef consumer, is lifting a ban on imports from Ireland more than 15 years after mad cow disease spurred restrictions of supplies from Europe.

Ireland’s Agriculture Ministry said it’s the first European Union country to regain access to the U.S. market, which buys more beef than any other country, according to an online statement today. The nation is the EU’s sixth-biggest beef producer and ranks third for exports, data from statistics agency Eurostat show.

U.S. beef prices rose to a record last year after years of drought and rising feed prices left the size of the cattle herd at the smallest since 1951, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Tight supplies have pushed prices “significantly higher” than those in the EU, making Irish beef competitive in the North American market, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said in an interview on RTE Radio 1.

“This U.S. market is a huge prize, given the size of the market and the demand we know exists there for premium grass-fed beef,” Coveney said in the ministry’s statement. “We now have first-mover advantage as a result of being the first EU member state to gain entry.”

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http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/ireland-first-in-line-to-resume-us-beef-exports-as-mad-cow-ban-ends_370256.html

Ireland first in line to resume US beef exports as mad-cow ban ends
Europe
05.01.2015
By our dpa-correspondent and Europe Online

Brussels (dpa) - Ireland is set to resume exporting beef to the United States, 17 years after European meat was banned from the US market because of mad cow disease, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said Monday.

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The US had instituted the EU beef ban in 1998 to prevent transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, an illness also known as mad cow disease, which afflicted Britain in the 1980s and 1990s.

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Washington first decided to reverse the ban in November 2013. Ireland has now become the first European country to regain access to the lucrative market, following inspections by US authorities.

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Ireland was the main European beef exporter to the US before the ban was put in place, accounting for more than 70 per cent of exports, according to European Commission spokesman Enrico Brivio.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/business/us-beef-imports-ireland.html

After Ban on Beef From Europe, U.S. Gives Green Light to Ireland
By DOUGLAS DALBYJAN. 5, 2015

DUBLIN — Irish beef will be the first from Europe to be sold in the United States in almost 16 years, after the lifting of a ban that had stemmed from an outbreak of mad cow disease in the late 1990s.

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Although any Irish imports might represent only a tiny fraction of American meat sales, Ireland might be likely to find a market among buyers seeking beef raised in pastures and free from artificial growth hormones.

“This U.S. market is a huge prize given its size and the demand we know exists there for premium grass-fed beef,” Ireland’s agriculture minister, Simon Coveney, said in an official announcement Monday on Irish national radio. “We now have first-mover advantage as a result of being the first E.U. member state to gain entry. There is also the large Irish-American community, which will be a key target of our promotional efforts.”

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The demand for premium grass-fed, hormone-free beef in the United States, particularly in the restaurant trade, is growing at an estimated 20 percent a year, Mr. Coveney said. Last year, the United States imported around 4 billion euros, or about $4.8 billion, worth of such beef from countries including Paraguay. Mr. Coveney estimates that the market could be worth €100 million to the Irish beef industry in 2015.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mad-cow-disease-amid-beef-recall/story?id=24125029

What To Know About Mad Cow Disease Amid Beef Recall
By SYDNEY LUPKIN (@slupkin)
June 13, 2014

A Missouri company has recalled more than 4,000 pounds of beef over fears that it might contain nerve tissue linked to mad cow disease.

The recall comes a week after the death of a Texas man from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder tied to eating meat from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease.

The disorder was discovered nearly two decades ago but continues to elude scientists searching for a diagnostic test or cure.

Here are some things you probably didn’t know about mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

It’s Not Viral or Bacterial

Human Cases Were Imported to U.S.

Only 4 U.S. Cows Have Been Diagnosed

American Red Cross Restricts Blood Donation

http://www.newswise.com/articles/first-successful-vaccination-against-mad-cow-like-wasting-disease-in-deer

First Successful Vaccination Against "Mad Cow"-Like Wasting Disease in Deer
- “Gut vaccine” strategy may work for similar brain infections in humans

Released: 17-Dec-2014 10:00 AM EST
Embargo expired: 21-Dec-2014 12:05 AM EST
Source Newsroom: NYU Langone Medical Center

Newswise — Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere say that a vaccination they have developed to fight a brain-based, wasting syndrome among deer and other animals may hold promise on two additional fronts: Protecting U.S. livestock from contracting the disease, and preventing similar brain infections in humans.

The study, to be published in Vaccine online Dec. 21, documents a scientific milestone: The first successful vaccination of deer against chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal brain disorder caused by unusual infectious proteins known as prions. Prions propagate by converting otherwise healthy proteins into a disease state.

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Equally important, the researchers say, this study may hold promise against human diseases suspected to be caused by prion infections, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, kuru, familial insomnia, and variably protease-sensitive prionopathy. Some studies also have associated prion-like infections with Alzheimer’s disease.

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CWD afflicts as much as 100 percent of North America’s captive deer population, as well as large numbers of other cervids that populate the plains and forests of the Northern Hemishpere, including wild deer, elk, caribou and moose. There is growing concern among scientists that CWD could possibly spread to livestock in the same regions, especially cattle, a major life stream for the U.S. economy, in much the same manner that bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease, another prion-based infection, spread through the United Kingdom almost two decades ago.

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