January 22, 2008

USDA updates safety regulations on beef imports

The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is removing several restrictions on animal identification and ruminant materials processing from regions that present a minimal risk of mad cow disease.

Under the amended safety rules, APHIS allows the unique identification of animals by means other than ear tags and the importation of hide-derived (in addition to bone-derived) gelatin for any use, provided certain conditions are met.

APHIS is removing certain restrictions which it believes provide no additional safeguards against the introduction of mad cow into the US. 

The changes will update a 2005 rule that established regions with effective mad cow prevention and detection measures, termed minimal-risk regions and conditions for safely importing live ruminants and ruminant products from such regions. 

Canada is currently the only country that USDA has considered to meet the requirements for a minimal-risk region.

On November 19, 2007, APHIS established conditions for the importation of certain bovines and bovine commodities from mad cow minimal-risk regions that had not been made eligible for importation by the first rule.