The animal with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) recently found in Brazil was probably an atypical case, according to the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratory in Weybridge, England. Atypical BSE, or “mad cow” disease, is a form of the prion disease not associated with the animal’s consumption of feed. The finding means it is unlikely the World Organization for Animal Health will make any change in Brazil’s “insignificant” risk status for BSE. Brazil moved much more quickly to report the collapse of the 12-year-old cow with “nerve disease” discovered at a slaughterhouse in the cattle-producing state of Mato Grosso than it did with its first case of BSE in 2010. It took two years for Brazil to report the existence of the first investigation, which was also ruled by OIE to be an atypical BSE case. The lab work showing atypical BSE was not conclusive, meaning that OIE has not closed the case. There’s never been a finding for a classic BSE case in Brazil. More than a dozen countries temporarily banned Brazilian beef after the first BSE case, and this second case has already caused Peru and Egypt to impose new 180-day beef import bans. Others may follow. Egypt, which buys about 10 percent of Brazil’s exported beef, limited its ban to the state of Mato Grosso. Peru’s purchases amount to less than 1 percent of Brazil’s beef exports, which totaled 1.5 million tons last year. USDA surveillance since 2003 has found four BSE-infected cows in this country. The last was an atypical case in 2012 involving an animal from California’s central valley.