csua.org/u/5q9 -> www.nytimes.com/2004/01/27/national/27BEEF.html?ex=1082433600&en=a077887f5cbb158f&ei=5070
Rules Issued on Animal Feed and Use of Disabled Cattle By DENISE GRADY and DONALD G. Published: January 27, 2004 he Food and Drug Administration imposed new rules yesterday to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, including a ban on feeding cow blood and chicken wastes to cattle. The agency also banned using dead or disabled cows to make products for people like dietary supplements, cosmetics or soups and other foods with traces of meat. McClellan, commissioner of food and drugs, in a telephone news briefing, take effect in a few days, as soon as they are published in The Federal Register, a spokesman for the agency said. The quick start of the rules after their announcement is a departure from the usual slower process. Thompson, the secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, the parent of the food and drug agency, called the rules a giant step forward but said in a telephone interview that even stricter regulations on animal feed might be imposed in the future. The rules are meant to prevent human exposure to the agent that causes mad cow disease and mirror the steps that the Agriculture Department took last month to protect meat supplies. The two sets of changes are a reaction to the discovery last month that a cow in Washington State had the brain disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Officials theorize that the cow was infected by contaminated feed in Canada, where it was born. Contaminated feed is widely believed to have started the mad cow epidemic in animals in Britain in the 1980s. Scientists suspect that feed can transmit the disease if it includes bone meal or other material rendered from the carcasses of sick cows, particularly the brain and spinal cord. The United States banned the use of cow parts in cattle feed in the 1990s but let producers feed cow blood to calves as a milk substitute. Blood can no longer be used, because studies have suggested that it may also be infectious. Also banned is the use of composted poultry litter as a feed ingredient for cows. The litter consists of bedding, spilled feed, feathers and fecal matter swept from the floors of chicken coops. The ingredient that worries health officials is the spilled feed, because chicken feed can legally contain meat and bone meal rendered from beef. Animals can no longer be fed plate waste, the agency said, meaning the meat and other scraps that diners leave on their plates in restaurants and that is rendered into the meat and bone meal added to feed. That material interferes with tests for prohibited proteins in the animal feed, the agency said. Finally, the new rules say equipment that makes feed with meat or bone meal can no longer be used to make cattle feed. Consumer groups praised the rules on animal feed but said there should be even more restrictions. Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, a consumer group in Washington, said: This is long, long overdue. Theyve been legally on notice for seven years that they need to close all these loopholes. Everything theyre doing, science organizations have requested long ago. Michael Hansen, a scientist at the Consumers Union, said, Its a good step forward, but its not good enough. Hansen said, is allowing rendered matter from cows to be fed to pigs and chickens and rendered pigs and chickens to be fed back to cows. In theory, that sequence could bring the disease full circle, back to cows. Sundlof, director of the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the food and drug agency, said there was no evidence that pigs or chickens could transmit mad cow disease. Thompson said the rules might be changed in the future to stop such practices. With regard to products meant for people, the new rules say that from now on material from animals that die on the farm or from downer cows, which cannot walk, will be banned from use in cosmetics and dietary supplements. The ban will also apply to foods with traces of meat, items that the food and drug agency rather than the Agriculture Department regulates. Also banned from products for humans will be the tissues most likely to carry the infectious agent like the brain, skull, eyes and spinal cord of animals 30 months or older and the tonsils and part of the small intestine of all cattle. Because a product called mechanically separated meat may carry infectious tissue, it will also be banned. Lumpkin, principal associate commissioner of the food and drug agency, said he did not expect any products to be recalled. Lumpkin said, but certain supplements contain as a major constituent cattle neuronal tissue or other parts from cows. Because those tissues are not allowed in foods, they should not be allowed in supplements, either, he said.
|
http://csua.com/feed/