While no such database currently exists, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has since 2004 been sponsoring a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) project in response to concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. The USDA intended for NAIS to streamline the tracking of cattle and other animals infected with diseases, allowing an animal's place of origin to be traced within 48 hours. When specifications for the NAIS were initially drafted, the USDA envisioned a target date of 2008 for mandatory compliance by the agribusiness industry.
However, the system's adoption has been slowed by cultural and technological hurdles among ranchers and meat producers. Different industry groups have come up with varying approaches based on their own systems, and there continue to be questions about whether the NAIS should be privately funded or paid for by the government.
At the same time, the USDA hasn't yet developed regulations to enforce compliance by 2008, according to a spokeswoman for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). APHIS is the division of the USDA that oversees the NAIS project.
It's not clear how the latest outbreak will affect progress on the NAIS, she said. "Certainly, it may help producers understand the need for the program."
Although the NAIS is still evolving, it is expected to include multiple interconnected databases, as opposed to one centralized database. These systems will be overseen by the agribusiness industry or some other private organization, not the government, she said. The exact means of tracking the cows -- whether by radio frequency identification (RFID) tags or some other technology -- also remains open.
As for the Alabama case, state and USDA officials are working together to trace the infected cow's origins, said a USDA spokesman, noting that locating a cow's origins requires going through documentation manually, a process that becomes more difficult if a cow has had multiple owners. As of Thursday, the spokesman did not believe the tracking efforts had been completed.
The situation in Alabama does emphasize the need for a national tracking system that can quickly identify cattle exposed to the same BSE-tainted food as the infected cow, said Rick Stott, a director for the U.S. Animal Identification Organization (USAIO). The agribusiness industry-sponsored USAIO is working to get a comprehensive animal tracking database up and running.
"Right now, the Alabama state veterinarian and USDA [are] sifting through a paper trail to try to accomplish what would take a matter of seconds through the system." He expects it will take weeks or months to track the cow's origins.
Stott also said the USAIO expects to wrap up beta testing of its database system as of next week. That effort is one of number of ongoing attempts to implement a NAIS-compliant system.