Low Risk to Human Health from BSE Goat Case: EU.

The article reports that the European Commission has announced that a French goat slaughtered in 2002 had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the first time the disease has been found in animals other than cattle, raising fears it could jump next to sheep. British sources said that a goat for which the brain-wasting disease scrapie was diagnosed in 1990 may have had mad cow disease, but up to 2 years of additional testing would be required to confirm this, because only a sliver of its brain remained. In comments about the British goat, Great Britain's Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds stated that it is important to put this finding into context.