Out of thousands of Central Valley Dairy cows that routinely cause drivers on I-5 to roll up their windows, one has been singled out by the Department of Agriculture as the first confirmed case of Mad Cow Disease in six years. Thankfully for us hamburger-loving humans, the dairy cow never posed any risk to the nation's food supply because bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for Mad Cow Disease, cannot be transmitted through milk and can only spread to humans through eating infected beef.

When the cow was picked up, it was apparently showing some signs of "unsteadiness and aggression" and has since been taken to a rendering plant, which is a cold, sterile place packed with people in hazmat suits, we bet. After the USDA is done with their investigation, the cow will be incinerated in what sounds like pretty much the grossest cookout imaginable.

Although the USDA doesn't seem to think there is any cause for alarm, consumer groups are calling for an expansion of the department's monitoring program. The budget for that program was slashed by 90% back in 2006, when only two cases of Mad Cow disease were uncovered in the wake of a Mad Cow scare in Washington State back in 2003.

This latest case may be something different than the last round of bovine hysteria though. Officials determined the 2003 case was caused by the cow's feed, but according to a professor of public health from the University of Minnesota, "[t]his new case appears to be that sporadic type of the disease, a sole cow that happens to get it at random and without any predictive characteristics.”

[NYT]