Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Agriculture Department banned the sale of meat from so-called ``downer'' cattle for human consumption after the nation's first case of mad cow disease was reported last week.
Meat from downer, or injured, cattle will no longer be allowed in the human food chain, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said at a press conference in Washington. The department also will prohibit the sale for human consumption of other tissue, including the spinal cord and the small intestine, from cattle that are older than 30 months, she said.
An international panel of scientific experts will review the U.S. response to the mad cow case, Veneman said.
The moves come as the government tries to revive $3.6 billion in annual export sales jeopardized by the disclosure that a cow in Washington state had contracted the disease, the first case in U.S. history. U.S. cattle futures have fallen 16 percent since the case was announced on Dec. 23, marking the steepest four-session decline since at least 1986.
Mad cow, a brain-wasting disease known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, has a lethal human variant, Creutzfeldt- Jakob, which has been blamed for 120 deaths, mostly in the U.K.
Before the Washington case was discovered, cattle futures in Chicago had jumped 25 percent since the U.S. banned Canadian cattle in May.
The U.S. was set to have a record year for beef exports at $3.6 billion, up from $3.2 billion in 2002, according to Gregg Doud, chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
