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USDA Proposes Animal Tracking System to Prevent Disease Outbreaks

May 6, 2005
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns wants farmers and meat processors to track all cattle, pigs and chickens over their lifetimes, to help prevent outbreaks of mad-cow disease and other food-borne illnesses.

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Cattle would be individually tagged and a central database would receive daily updates on animal movements, Johanns said. Pigs and chickens, which are normally handled in groups, would get a group tracking number.

The goal is to identify animals exposed to disease within 48 hours, Johanns said. But consumer organizations are taking issue with Johanns' implementation plan, which would not make animal tracking mandatory until 2009.

"The timeline for implementation is another Bush-adminstration bow to the cattle producers," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food Safety Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"Delaying until 2009 ... means the U.S. is lagging even further behind many of our trading partners on food safety issues," she said. "Canadian officials were able to move from a voluntary to a mandatory animal identification and traceback system in a year."

Meanwhile, the organization Public Citizen charged that the USDA may soon be starting the process to weaken the rule that prohibits "downer" cattle -- those which are too sick or injured to walk -- from the human food supply.

Instituted fifteen months ago in response to the discovery of mad cow disease in the United States, the restriction on downers in food is an important food safety measure which should not be weakened, said Public Citizen's Audrey Hill.

The animal tracking proposal comes as the U.S. is pushing Japanese officials to reopen their market to U.S. beef. Japan halted beef imports after the first case of mad-cow disease in the U.S. was discovered in December 2003.

The USDA estimates the cost of the animal tags project at $80 million per year. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association says it is developing its own database system. The cattlemen want to run their own system and let the government have access to it.

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