Looking for Trouble

In late April, a federal meat inspector at the Lone Star Beef processing plant in San Angelo, Texas, watched as a cow headed for slaughter staggered around and collapsed. The cow showed signs of a central nervous system disorder. The inspector, a veterinarian with the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, ordered that the cow be killed in a humane manner and tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, a degenerative neurological disease. BSE is commonly called mad cow disease because cows in the disease's advanced stages often exhibit erratic behavior as their brains deteriorate.