I. Introduction: Confirmation of the Inevitable

On December 23, 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it had diagnosed a single Holstein dairy cow near Yakima, Washington, with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease. The cow was sent to the BSE international reference laboratory in Weybridge, England, where the diagnosis was confirmed on Christmas day, finally confirming the cattle industry's worst fears that mad cow disease would one day be detected in American herds. News of this discovery sent an immediate shockwave through the U.S. economy, resulting in declining restaurant stock prices, minimal beef futures trading, and public fear of beef consumption. On December 23, the Washington meat company that had slaughtered the BSE-positive cow voluntarily recalled over 10, pounds of beef that they believed might have been exposed to BSE-infected tissues. On December 24, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the same administrative division that had twice inspected the BSE-positive Holstein before releasing it for use as food for human consumption, mandated the recall of beef from cattle that had been slaughtered in the same plant on the same day as the BSE-infected cow. The infected specimen was shown to be 1 of 81 cows that had been shipped to the United States from Canada on September 4, 2001. The Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, immediately appointed an international panel of BSE experts to assess the response to the identification of the infected cow, to identify areas for improvement of current BSE safeguards, and to trace the whereabouts of the remaining 80 cattle that entered the United States with the infected cow.