New Insights Into Mad Cow Disease: Diversity Of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Agents Discovered (Science Daily) Researchers have identified four separate biochemical subgroups in a selection of cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The study suggests that these subgroups could represent distinct prion strains in what is the most common human prion disease. [News Source]

Disparate Federal Rules in Spotlight (Washington Post) Although the Agriculture Department prohibits the use of beef from "downer" cattle in federally funded school lunches, the agency sometimes allows the meat in the general food supply, a disparity that critics say undercuts officials' contention that there is no food safety reason to ban meat from... [News Source]

USDA Rejects ‘Downer’ Cow Ban (Washington Post) Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told Congress yesterday that he would not endorse an outright ban on "downer" cows entering the food supply or back stiffer penalties for regulatory violations by meat-processing plants in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation's history. [News Source]

California joins states in international cattle trade dispute (BizJournals) California is the latest of several border states to enter an international dispute surrounding cattle trade. [News Source]

Lessons learned from largest U.S. meat recall (AG Weekly) Not since Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book “The Jungle” has the American meat market been this shaken. [News Source]

More animal abuses could hurt demand for US beef. Consumer demand for US ground beef could fall if circumstances that lead to the recall of a record 143 million lbs of meat in February happens again. [News Source]

Beef Recall: Current Lists of Restaurants, Stores (FOX 11 News Los Angeles) The California Department of Health has released a new retail distribution list of recalled raw and frozen beef products from Hallmark Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino. The list currently has approximately 7,500 names and includes restaurants and stores. [News Source]

Sierra Leone: Hello Tripoli, Hi Beijing! How Are You Freetown? (AllAfrica.com) You don't look at a gift horse in the mouth, it is said. But a cow with CJD should be sent back to the giver. Or do you eat it and get infected with mad cow disease? [News Source]

Gangsters complain sentences for contempt too stiff (winnipegsun.com) Two Mad Cow gang members whose refusal to testify in murder trials netted them jail terms for contempt of court will be arguing before Manitoba's highest court tomorrow that their sentences are "harsh and excessive" and that their convictions should be dropped. [News Source]

Discovery Could Have Implicatications For Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, Mad Cow Disease And Many Cancers (Medical News Today) The thousands of proteins found in nature are simply strings of amino acids, assembled by genes, and scientists have long believed that they automatically fold themselves into uniquely fixed, 3-dimensional shapes to fire the engine of life. In the era of genetic research, identifying those shapes and their functions has become a worldwide focus of biomedical science. [News Source]