Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 4, 1994                   TAG: 9409060040
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TB-SUSPECT CATTLE AUTOPSIED IN FLOYD

If the tests are positive, Virginia faces the loss of its TB-free status for two years, making it more difficult for the state's farmers to market their cattle out of state.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily suspended the state's TB-free status in July after TB was found in cattle in an Ohio packing plant and traced back to a Floyd County farm. The entire herd of 287 animals eventually was sent to slaughter.

In order to avoid losing its TB-free status, the state was required to test all herds within 1.5 miles of the infected farm and any herds that might contain cattle sold from the farm.

During those tests, three cattle on a nearby farm were suspected of having TB. Those cattle underwent autopsies at a slaughterhouse Aug.12, and suspicious-looking tissue was discovered, said Toni Radler, spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Enlargement of the tissue could have a variety of causes, she said.

It will be about six more weeks until the results of tissue cultures from those cattle are returned, Radler said.

If the tests are negative and no TB is found outside the farm where it was first discovered, the state could have its TB-free status restored this fall.

Under the suspended status, eight of the nine states to which 90 percent of the state's cattle are shipped require no special testing for tuberculosis.

If Virginia loses its TB-free status, Virginia farmers might have to round up their cattle and give them costly tests before they could be sold to buyers in some states.