April 19, 2006

 

US groups call for tighter feed rules in aftermath of Canada's mad cow case

 

 

Two US consumer groups on Monday (Apr 17) called for stricter measures on cattle feed and stronger enforcement on the ban of cattle parts in livestock feed in the aftermath of the latest mad cow case in Canada.

 

The feed ban is one of the two primary safeguards against mad cow disease. The other is a requirement for meatpackers to remove from older cattle the brains, spinal cords and other tissue most at risk of containing the disease's infective agent.

 

Michael Hansen of Consumers Union said that cases of mad cow disease are still emerging despite the feed ban. Canada's three most recent cases of mad cow disease involved cattle born after US and Canada imposed the ban.

 

Canada's latest case, confirmed on Sunday, was a six-year-old purebred Holstein dairy cow in British Columbia.

 

Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said the new Canadian case suggested there was contaminated feed served to cattle in the early 2000s, so enforcement of the feed ban may not have been effective in Canada.

 

The feed ban is only as good as its enforcement, DeWaal said. She added that the industry would be seeing more of such cases if farms fail to enforce the feed ban.

 

In response, USDA has said both countries have long anticipated isolated cases of mad cow disease to emerge from Canada.

 

In an email, USDA spokesman Ed Loyd said on-going investigations would provide information about how this animal might have been exposed and how it might affect America's risk assessment of Canada.

 

USDA also would take into account mad-cow measures in Canada, including its mandatory cattle tracking system and requirement for removal of specified risk materials that might carry mad cow disease.

 

Canada ships beef from younger cattle to US markets and sends animals under the age of 30 months for slaughter in the United States.

 

Feed rules in the US are now under review while consumer groups are urging tightened rules that would ban the use of chicken litter, table scraps and cattle blood in livestock feed.

 

The groups are also calling on FDA to require feed makers to restrict equipment, or even entire mills, to making feed for specific species, which the FDA has so far resisted.

 

The brains and spinal cords of cattle are believed to be chiefly responsible for spreading mad cow disease. Since the FDA has already proposed banning the brains and spinal cords of older cattle from use in livestock feed, it would be unnecessary to take other steps, a senior FDA official said.