FDA toughens rules to cut mad-cow risks

By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The federal government yesterday bolstered the feed rules that are considered the most important "firewall" against the spread of mad-cow disease and announced new regulations to keep the infection out of food, cosmetics and nutritional supplements.

Officials said the changes will make a small risk even smaller, but consumer advocates said the government still isn't doing enough to protect livestock and the public from the fatal, brain-wasting disease.

To reduce the risk that cattle will become infected, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of dried cattle blood in feed, including milk substitutes for calves. The agency also outlawed the use of table scraps and waste from poultry farms in feed intended for cattle, sheep and other mammals that are vulnerable to mad-cow or similar diseases.

Additionally, the FDA banned the use of brains and spinal cords from older cows in cosmetics and human nutritional supplements. Mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is more common in older animals and concentrates in those "high-risk" tissues.

"With today's actions, FDA will be doing more than ever before to protect the public against BSE by eliminating additional potential sources of BSE exposure," said FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan.

New feed restrictions The government's new rules aimed at reducing the risk of mad-cow disease include: • Prohibiting mammalian blood and blood products from being fed to cattle or other ruminant animals. • Banning chicken waste from livestock feed. • Banning the use of restaurant table scraps from being recycled into cattle feed. • Requiring plants that make both cattle feed and feed for other animals that uses bovine ingredients to have separate production lines to guard against accidental contamination.

But the agency stopped short of adopting a total ban on the use of mammalian protein in feed for all farm animals — a step taken several years ago by Britain, the European Union, Japan and other Asian nations.

"These changes do reduce the risk of mad-cow disease and they do close some of the worst loopholes, but they need to go further," said Michael Hansen, senior analyst for Consumer's Union, one of several consumer groups that have long been urging the government to adopt stricter feed rules.

It's still legal to use pig and chicken parts in cattle feed, even though recent studies show that animals that don't appear to suffer from mad-cow-like diseases may be silent carriers, Hansen said.

Shortly after the nation's first case of mad-cow disease was discovered last month in a Yakima County Holstein, the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned sick or injured cows and most high-risk tissues from being sold as human food.

The FDA, which regulates other foods that can contain beef, like frozen pizza and broth, matched that prohibition yesterday, banning all use of dead and so called "downer" animals in food, cosmetics and dietary supplements.

But experts think the single most effective way to stop the spread of the disease is to make sure cows don't eat feed that contains tissue from infected animals. The widespread use of sheep and cow parts in British cattle feed is largely blamed for the mad-cow epidemic there a decade ago.

About 150 people worldwide have contracted the fatal, human form of the disease, probably by eating infected beef.

In 1997, the United States adopted a partial feed ban, which prohibited the use of cow and sheep parts in cattle feed. But until yesterday, the law allowed the use of cattle blood and "poultry litter" — the sweepings from poultry farms that include feces, feathers and spilled food. Because it's OK to make poultry feed from cattle parts, the practice could have exposed cows to the fatal disease.

Table scraps from restaurants, which can include beef and bones, pose a similar risk.

While blood hasn't been proved to transmit mad-cow disease, new studies suggest it could, and the United States has banned blood donations from people who lived in countries where the disease was prevalent.

The FDA also will step up enforcement of the feed ban by collaborating with state agencies to conduct more frequent inspections of feed mills and rendering plants, where dead animals and slaughterhouse wastes are converted to meal and fats used in animal feed. A report last year from the General Accounting Office criticized the agency for not being vigilant in policing existing feed rules.

And to prevent the possibility of cross-contamination, the agency will require renderers and feed plants to produce cattle feed in separate facilities from those that produce other animal feeds.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com

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