Panamanian officials announces they have banned the importation of U.S. beef following the discovery of the second case of mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Ministry says it notified U.S. officials of the ban, which was effective immediately. Panama banned U.S. beef after the first mad cow case was reported, and subsequently lifted it in October; only allowing the importation of products originating from animals no more than 30 months old

The Agriculture Department announces Friday there is no health risk to consumers after receiving conflicting results of a mad-cow test conducted on a bovine that was unable to walk and will seek further testing of a tissue sample of the cow.

There has only been one case of mad cow disease in The U.S., an infected dairy cow in Washington State in December 2003

According to the Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns there could be a second case of mad cow disease in the U.S.

Johanns said the new suspected case involved an older beef animal which was chosen for testing because it was a "downer" animal that could not walk when it arrived at the slaughterhouse

Dutch health officials have confirmed that a 26 year old dutch woman has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of Mad Cow. Jan van Wijngaarde, an inspector with the Health Ministry, said the woman's "prognosis is poor." The un-named patie is believed to have contracted the disease by eating tainted beef, the Health Ministry said in a statement. Bas Kuik, Health Ministry spokesperson, said the woman, has never lived outside the Netherlands, was most likely infected before 1997, when the country introduced tight restrictions on beef imports. "Beef in the Netherlands is safe because all susceptible cows are tested for BSE when they are slaughtered," the ministry statement included. 149 people in Britain, and another 10 in other countries including Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Ireland, and Japan, are known to have contracted the disease