January 9, 2008

EU continues ban on cattle blood added to fish feed

The EU announced that it is not lifting the ban on dried blood compounds from cattle being added to fish feed.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was consulted by the European Commission to assess the adverse effects of adding bovine blood compounds to the feed after the European Animal Protein Association urged for the reintroduction of bovine spray dried red cells as an ingredient in feeds for farmed fish.

EFSA Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards disclosed that there is currently no sufficient data to quantify the BSE risk for animal or human from feeding cattle blood products to farmed fish.

Furthermore, the EFSA upholds its opinion in 2004 that the practice is stunning since slaughtering cattle could potentially result in small quantities of BSE infected material (brain particles), contaminating the blood collected.

The Panel said that health risk may arise if recycling of BSE-contaminated bovine blood into feed destined for cattle occurs directly (i.e. bovine blood products fed to cattle) or indirectly (i.e. fishmeal made from fish recently fed with BSE contaminated bovine blood given to cattle).

Intraspecies, like cattle to cattle or sheep to sheep, recycling of blood or other animal proteins is not permitted under EU law.