But this could not just affect the dairy farmers, a lot of people here grow hay. But if no one is buying that, it’s going to go to nothing.”Sid Leyendekker, owner of Hidden Valley Dairy, which was initially and erroneously identified as the source of the infected cow, could be hit in many ways. He added that he kept a small number of beef cattle on his land and he knew most of the farmers and many of the workers.”This is going to be very damaging,” he said. Because there is no effective test on live animals, other neighbouring herds may also have to be slaughtered if there is even a suspicion that their feed may also have been infected. The knock-on effect is easy to imagine, but terrifying to consider.”This is a poverty-stricken place, it’s all about hard-work,” said Mike Britton, a police officer who was on patrol over what should have been the festive period.

The local people say that perhaps 80 per cent or more of the population of 2,000 is Hispanic, mainly farm labourers from Mexico.Those workers and the farm-owners alike are well aware that if the Sunny Dene cow is officially confirmed as being infected, all of the herd will have to be slaughtered and the brains and spinal cords of the animals tested. Scruffy, down-at-heel and set beneath low hills, there are only a few other sources of employment other than the dairy and fruit farms that fill the valley floor, where the air is rich with the smell of manure and animal feed. It’s all going through the regulatory authorities.”Mabton is in the Yakima Valley, about 170 miles south-east of Seattle, although it might as well be in a different world to the cosmopolitan coastal city. Obviously, personal information we can’t discuss,” William Wavrin told a local reporter His brother, Sid, added: “I just don’t have anything to say.

Their farm, the Sunny Dene Ranch, which employs 18 people and has an annual turn-over of $18m (£10m), is now under federal quarantine.Wary of the dozens of reporters who have descended on Mabton, the two brothers have politely declined to say very much by way of explanation, leaving the matter of investigation to the officials from the US Department of Agriculture (Usda) “It’s a very active investigation. It was a Holstein cow from the two brothers’ 4,000- strong herd that tested positive for BSE. “There will not be as much money available.”Just a few hundred yards away from the sports club Christmas Eve party where Mr Gutierrez and his friends were talking about little other than the likely effect the discovery of the infected cow will have on their community, Sid and William Wavrin were also facing a bleak future. On a small raised stage at one end of the hall the Latino band was doing its best to keep the party going but it was clear that the enthusiasm for celebration was muted. Most people here – I would say 90 per cent – work on the land. It’s going to create a lot of problems for the people.”In the hard-working farming community of Mabton in Washington State, facing problems and finding ways of overcoming those difficulties is a way of life.But since the discovery four days ago of America’s first suspected case of BSE in a cow from one of the town’s dairies, those problems have started stacking up even higher. And if the worst predictions come true there may be no quick or obvious solution.

“I’ve got four children,” said Mr Gutierrez, 45, himself a dairy hand, as one of his young daughters ran up to him and pulled at his hand. But there is also a “sporadic” form of CJD that strikes people for no apparent reason and appears to be the result of random mutations to the genetic material responsible for the prion protein in the brain and spinal cord.This prion is thought to be the infectious agent behind BSE and its human equivalent, vCJD. It is also known to be involved with the sporadic form of the human disease.It is possible that there is also a sporadic form of BSE which may have always been present in cattle in very small numbers, but which went unrecognised. If so, US scientists will want to know whether the case they are investigating represents the first case of sporadic BSE.INFECTED NATIONSCountries where BSE has been detectedAustria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland and United States.. Britain learnt hard lessons with its epidemic of BSE, which remains the worst outbreak anywhere in the world. The appearance of one confirmed case of BSE in America demonstrates yet again the uniqueness of the mysterious agent behind this class of deadly brain disease. The euro rose to $1.2470 against the dollar as confidence in the greenback was knocked by the BSE developments as well as mounting fears of an imminent terrorist attack and unexpectedly grim news on the economy.McDonald’s shares were among the hardest hit by the BSE scare, losing 5.2 per cent In the UK, however, shares in Protherics rose 6 per cent It receives royalties from the sale of BSE kits..