Is BSE confined to Britain?

No. It had spread 11 other countries by 1992 including France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S. Sporadic outbreaks have occurred in the USA and Canada from 1993 as a result of British farm animal exports. Some 471 British cattle were imported into the US before they were outlawed in a 1989 ban. Of these possibly infectious animals, 188 were rendered down into animal feeds and at least 66 couldn't be traced.

Scrapie is endemic in 39 US states which doesn't explain several outbreaks of Mink Spongiform Encephalopathy (TME) at US fur farms. These animals cannot be infected with scrapie... but they had been given feeds made from 'downer' dairy cattle. 'Downers' is the American term for cows which fall down and cannot stand up again because of sickness.

Richard Marsh, a veterinary scientist at the University of Wisconsin, has carried out experiments which suggest that some 'downer' cows may be infected with a type of BSE. And in America, the land of beef- and burger-eaters, there are 100 million cattle of which 300,000 die due to unexplained causes every year.

New York Times: 4.10.96 page 13 local news digest paragraph. not available by on-line search.

New York State quarantines 13 cattle on 3 farms.

Thirteen New York cattle have been placed under quarantine by state agricultural officials because of concerns they could be carrying mad cow disease, although there is no evidence the animals are infected. The State Department of Agriculture and Markests is negotiating with three farmers to destroy the animals, which were imported from Britain before the Federal Government placed an embargo on British calllte in 1989."

copyright NY Times Company 1996
Additional Background and Commentary provided by Webmaster:

Authorities from UDSA-APHIS have been hunting down some of the several hundred cattle imported from Britain that escaped the 1989 ban on live imports.Politically, this is very significant to the meat and dairy industry. However, these animals are utterly insignificant scientifically in view of endemic sheep scrapie and 300,000 'downer cows' annually entering the US food chain and continuing use of imported British protein and dietary supplements from infected animals. Cattle in US may well have BSE [in amongst DCS -- downer cattle syndrome]. This disease has been transmitted to mink farms, as per numerous peer-reviewed publications of U. Wisconsin veterinary scientist R.F. Marsh.

BSE is a disease that naturally occurs in cattle at low frequency just as scrapie occurs naturally in sheep or humans as rare mutant alleles of a normal PrP gene, so of course it is expected to be present in the U.S.minimally at these 1 per million levels. The question is whether these basal levels have been exacerbated by feeding rendered infected sheep and cattle from either U.S. or British sources.