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FDA Proposes Stricter Mad Cow Safeguards

October 5, 2005
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced new measures to protect consumers against the agent thought to cause mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), although critics said the measures are too weak to fully protect against the deadly disease.

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The new regulations are similar to those proposed in Canada, which proposes to ban the use of risky tissues, like brains and spinal cords, from all animal feed, not just cattle feed. Former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford revealed the plans last month at a Consumer Federation of America food policy conference.

The agency is proposing to amend its animal feed regulations to prohibit the use in all animal feed of certain high-risk cattle materials that can potentially carry the BSE-infectious agent. All of the proposed prohibitions, except for those related to tallow, have already applied to cattle feed since 1997.

Public Citizen's Audrey Hill said the proposed rules don't go far enough.

"While the proposed animal feed rules do ban the brains and spinal cords of cattle over 30 months of age from going into animal feed, they would still allow the brain and spinal cord from younger cattle, as well as other nervous system tissues from all cattle, to be used in animal feed," Hill said.

Moreover, Hill said, the current rules, which took effect in 1997, still allow the use of cattle blood, waste from the floors of poultry houses, and processed restaurant plate waste to be fed to cattle. The new rules will not address these loopholes, all of which still allow pathways for the disease to spread, she said.

Hill noted that, unlike other food-borne diseases, cooking does not kill the prions that cause mad cow disease or its human form.

The USDA insisted the new rules were adequate.

"These additional measures that we proposed today will make an already small risk even smaller by further strengthening the effective measures already in place to protect American consumers from BSE," said Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.

These high-risk cattle materials prohibited in the new proposed rule include:
• the brains and spinal cords from cattle 30 months of age and older,
• the brains and spinal cords from cattle of any age not inspected and passed for human consumption,
• the entire carcass of cattle not inspected and passed for human consumption if the brains and spinal cords have not been removed,
• tallow that is derived from the materials prohibited by this proposed rule if the tallow contains more than 0.15 percent insoluble impurities,
• mechanically separated beef that is derived from the materials prohibited by this proposed rule.

The proposed regulation builds on a series of firewalls that include FDA's 1997 feed regulation which prohibits the use of certain mammalian-origin proteins in ruminant feed (e.g. for cattle and sheep), but allows these materials to be used in feed for non-ruminant species.

The removal of high-risk materials from all animal feed - including pet food - will protect against the transmission of the agent of BSE that could occur either through cross-contamination of ruminant feed with non-ruminant feed or feed ingredients during feed manufacture and transport, or intentional or unintentional misfeeding of non-ruminant feed to ruminants on the farm.

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