MR. JIM ROGERS: "Good morning everybody. This is Jim Rogers with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services Legislative and Public Affairs Office. Today we have with us Dr. Andrea Morgan. She is the associate deputy administrator for our Veterinary Services Program. She will be giving a brief statement today followed by some question and answers.

"So at this point I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Morgan."

DR. ANDREA MORGAN: "Thanks, Jim. Good morning, everybody.

"Early this morning we were notified that an inconclusive BSE test result was received on a rapid screening test used as part of our enhanced BSE surveillance program. The inconclusive result does not mean we have found another case of BSE in this country. Inconclusive results are a normal component of screening tests, which are designed to be extremely sensitive so that they will detect any samples that could possibly be positive.

"Tissue samples are now being sent to USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories, which is the national BSE reference lab which will run confirmatory testing.

"Because this test is only an inconclusive test result, we are not disclosing details specific to this test at this time.

"APHIS has begun internal steps to begin initial trace-backs if further testing were to return a positive result. However, it is important to note that this animal did not enter the food or the feed chain.

"Confirmatory results are expected back from NVSL within the next four to seven days. And if the test comes back positive for BSE we will then be providing additional information about the animal and its origin.

"USDA remains confident in the safety of the U.S. beef supply, our ban on specified risk materials from the human food chain provides the protection to public health should another case of BSE ever be detected in the United States.

"Screening tests are often used in both human and animal health, and therefore inconclusive are not unexpected. These tests cast a very wide net and many end up negative during further testing.

"And some subset of these animals may even turn out to be positive for BSE. While none of us wants to see that happen, that is not unexpected. Our surveillance program is designed to test as many animals as we can in the populations that are considered to be at high risk for BSE. And as of Monday November 15, we've tested a little over 113,000 samples. We have had two inconclusive, and as of this report this now represents the third inconclusive.

"Additional measures to strengthen public health safeguards include: our longstanding ban on the imports of live cattle, other ruminants, and most ruminant products from high-risk countries for BSE; FDA's 1997 prohibition on the use of most mammalian protein in cattle feed, an aggressive surveillance program that's been in place for more than a decade, the banning of nonambulatory cattle from the human food chain, the process-control requirements for establishments using advanced meat recovery AMR systems, prohibiting the air-injection stunning of cattle, and lastly if an animal presented for slaughter is sampled for BSE, holding that carcass until the test results have been confirmed negative.

"And that concludes our statement."

MR. ROGERS: "All right, Operator. At this time we'd like to open the floor to questions. In addition to Dr. Andrea Morgan we also have with us Dr. Keith Collins. He is the USDA's chief economist, who can answer questions as well."

OPERATOR: "Thank you. At this time we will begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing *1. You will be prompted to record your first and last name. To withdraw your request, press *2. One moment please for our first question.

"Our first question comes from Sally Schuff of Feedstuffs."

QUESTION: "Yes, good morning. And I apologize. I got on the call a little bit late. "Can you tell me, was the inclusive determined as the result of the first or a combination of the first and second rapid tests?"

DR. MORGAN: "It's a combination of the testing per the protocols that we are now following."

MR. ROGERS: "Operator, next question, please?"

OPERATOR: "Thank you. Once again, to ask a question please press *1.

"Our next question comes from Bill Tomson of Dow Jones."

QUESTION: "Hello. Am I understanding this right that you actually got two inconclusive results?"

DR. MORGAN: "No, sir. Prior to this announcement today of our third inconclusive test result, back in July we announced two inconclusive tests. So this now represents our third inconclusive test finding."

OPERATOR: "Our next question comes from Jerry Hagstrom of Congress Daily."

QUESTION: "Good morning. I seem to recall that there was some kind of change in policy that when you first started doing this testing you were making an announcement right after the first test, and then you changed this because everybody got upset that it was released, you know, inconclusive, and that upset the markets; and then you were going to be stricter on these.

"How does this -- am I right about that? And is this different? Has there been more testing than there would have been on the first one or two that you announced?"

DR. MORGAN: "Thank you for the question. And as an explanation, what we're doing now is, the test in itself represents, you do one test and then you repeat that test. What we were doing prior to the new protocol is, we were announcing an inconclusive after that initial indication of a possible inconclusive.

"What we're now doing is, we are allowing the submitting laboratory to rerun the test and to see if we get another indication of a possibility of an inconclusive. And so that's now, this particular inconclusive as we're reporting it is an indication that in the initial run we had an indication of an inconclusive. We allowed the submitting laboratory to rerun the test, and they got yet another indication on the rerun of an inconclusive."

MR. ROGERS: "Operator, next question, please?"

OPERATOR: "Our next question comes from Chris Clayton of the Omaha World Herald."

QUESTION: "Thank you. That last question, to clarify that-- so you have had more than one test on this. And I apologize. I also jumped in late, but when exactly was this animal first tested?"

DR. MORGAN: "There is a press statement that is going out and actually has I think gone out prior to this call. So that perhaps will give you some more information. And it was early this morning that we were notified of this test result."

MR. ROGERS: "Next question, please?"

OPERATOR: "Once again, to ask a question please press *1. One moment.

"Our next question comes from Christina Bilsky (sp) of Nikkei Newspaper."

QUESTION: "Hi. Thanks for taking my question. It's a Japanese newspaper in EK.

"You mentioned you had as of the 15th Monday you had tested 113,000 cattle. What was the starting date for that? Would you remind us, please?"

DR. MORGAN: "For our enhanced surveillance effort representing those numbers, June 1, 2004."

OPERATOR: "Our next question comes from Daniel Goldstein of Bloomberg News."

QUESTION: "Yeah, hi. Can you tell us whether the animal that you tested was part of the, quote, "high risk" category, or was this part of the 20,000 of the so-called healthy animals that you were planning to test?"

DR. MORGAN: "The animal is part of the targeted high-risk population."

MR. ROGERS: "Next question, please."

OPERATOR: "Our next question is from Jackie Fatka of Farm Progress."

QUESTION: "Good morning. If this is a confirmed BSE case, can you talk about ongoing negotiations with Japan and other markets that we have finally made a little bit of progress on what this might do for those negotiations?"

MR. ROGERS: "I'm sorry, Jackie. Could you please repeat your question?"

OPERATOR: "One moment, please. Ms. Fatka, please repeat your question?"

QUESTION: "Hi, this is Jackie Fatka from Farm Progress. And I would like you to speak on how this might affect ongoing negotiations if this is a confirmed BSE case."

DR. MORGAN: "Thank you for the question. I myself am not involved in those negotiations. However, I would not expect that that would affect them because of the response that we would be taking and the measures as I mentioned a moment ago that we have already taken to date."

MR. ROGERS: "Next question, please?"

OPERATOR: "At this time, Mr. Rogers, there are no additional questions."

MR. ROGERS: "Excellent. Then at this time, we would like to conclude the call. I'd like to thank everyone who called in today. As we have already said, there is currently a press statement on the USDA website at WWW.USDA.GOV. And if any of the members of the media have further questions you can reach me at 202-690-4755. And one additional item, for those reporters that I know out there who didn't get the spelling of Dr. Morgan's name, it's A-N-D-R-E-A M-O-R-G-A- N. She's the associate deputy administrator for Veterinary Services with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

"This concludes the call. Thank you again."