Limestone County farmer Donna Jo Curtis has been raising cattle all of her life, and she says that she doesn’t worry about mad cow disease.

Mad cow disease—or bovine spongiform encephalopathy—is a neurological disease in cattle.

Agriculture officials reported a confirmed case of the disease in a cow on an Alabama farm this week, bringing the total number of cases reported in the United States to three. The location of the farm where the cow was housed has not been disclosed.

Curtis said the disease only occurs in the brain and spinal chord of the cow, not in the meat people consume.

“Firewalls are in place so it doesn’t get into the food chain,” she said.

Curtis has 120 cows with calves on her farm near Ardmore.

Regional Extension Agent Jerry Thompson explained there is nothing for consumers to worry about and that this was an isolated incident in a cow that never made it close to the food chain.

“It’s not a public health issue at all,” he said. “The cow was never even presented to be harvested.”

Since its diagnosis, the cow has been euthanized and properly disposed of on the farm.

Thompson said that the incident was blown out of proportion. He said that of approximately a half million cattle tested only three cases of BSE have ever been found in this country, and the neurological disease has never been found in cattle younger than 30 months old.

That accounts for “extremely small number” of cattle, he said.

BSE, Thompson said, is transmitted through feed.

Feed that could have ruminant products that cause the disease has been banned since 1997.

So, he explained, only older cattle that ate this feed prior to 1997 would have been exposed to the disease.

The cow recently diagnosed with the disease was a Santa Gertrudis breed, a red-colored beef cow that thrives in hotter weather in the southern United States. The cow is estimated to be 10 years or older.

The age of the cow is important because the United States put safeguards in place nine years ago to prevent the disease from spreading.

Thompson said occurrence of BSE is on the decline. The only other U.S. cases of the disease were confirmed in Washington and Texas several years ago.

According to the Associated Press, word came of the recent case as the Bush administration sought to reassure other trading partners that U.S. beef is safe. The nation is still working to recover some markets after a case of mad cow disease in 2003.

The Alabama farm where the diseased cow was housed is said to be under quarantine. The cow had spent less than a year there before it died, officials said.

“We will not release this information at this time until we complete our investigation, and that could take a few days,” state agriculture commissioner Ron Sparks said.