YAKIMA, Wash., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A fourth herd of Washington state cows has been quarantined for the mad cow investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
The quarantine was announced, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Saturday, even as test results on the first dairy cows killed as a result of the mad cow investigation came back negative.
Five more cows -- from a herd of 81 Canadian animals that included a Holstein infected with mad cow disease -- have been traced to a facility in Connell, 65 miles east of Yakima, the USDA said in a news release. That means 19 cows from the herd, which entered the United States in 2001, have been found.
Test results for 28 of the euthanized cows taken from another farm in Washington have been completed and didn't find mad cow disease, the USDA announced.
Meanwhile, the food industry offered Friday to develop a voluntary meat, fish and produce labeling system to inform shoppers where food came from, trying to persuade Congress to scrap a government-imposed country-of-origin labeling requirement.
