Fwd from SANET (Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group). - Keith
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 17:41:46 -0500
From: jcummins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USDA: ADDITIONAL PROTECTION MEASURES AGAINST BSE
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In reply to William Thomas of USDA, currently there has been no overt
mention of restrictions on blood meal use in cattle feed as there was
last May in the Canadian Import Restrictions by USDA. Because there is
evidence that vCJD that originated from BSE may be passed through blood
transfusion it seems most prudent to restrict use of blood meal in
cattle feed. Blood meal may also expose farm hands by breathing feed dust
or contact with skin cuts or abrasions. It seems unwise to ignore blood
meal and focus only on nerve tissue. sincerely, prof. joe cummins
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 16:32:29 -0500
From: "William B. Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: USDA: ADDITIONAL PROTECTION MEASURES AGAINST BSE
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Release No. 0449.03
Alisa Harrison (202) 720-4623
Julie Quick (202) 720-4623
Veneman Announces Additional Protection Measures To Guard Against BSE
WASHINGTON, Dec. 30, 2003-Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman
today announced additional safeguards to bolster the U.S. protection
systems against Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BSE, and further
protect public health.
"For more than a decade, the United States has had in place an
aggressive surveillance, detection and response program for BSE,"
said Veneman. "While we are confident that the United States has
safeguards and firewalls needed to protect public health, these
additional actions will further strengthen our protection systems."
Veneman said the policies announced today have been under
consideration for many months, especially since the finding of a case
of BSE in Canada in May 2003. The policies will further strengthen
protections against BSE by removing certain animals and specified
risk material and tissues from the human food chain; requiring
additional process controls for establishments using advanced meat
recovery (AMR); holding meat from cattle that have been tested for
BSE until the test has confirmed negative; and prohibiting the
air-injection stunning of cattle.
While many cattle in the United States can be identified through
a variety of systems, the Secretary also announced that USDA will
begin immediate implementation of a verifiable system of national
animal identification. The development of such a system has been
underway for more than a year and a half to achieve uniformity,
consistency and efficiency across this national system.
"USDA has worked with partners at the federal and state levels
and in industry for the past year and a half on the adoption of
standards for a verifiable nationwide animal identification system to
help enhance the speed and accuracy of our response to disease
outbreaks across many different animal species," Veneman said. "I
have asked USDA's Chief Information Officer to expedite the
development of the technology architecture to implement this system a
top priority.
"These are initial steps that USDA will take to enhance our
protection system," Veneman said. "I am appointing an international
panel of scientific experts to provide an objective review of our
response actions and identify areas for potential additional
enhancements."
Specifically, USDA will take the following actions:
Downer Animals. Effectively immediately, USDA will ban all downer
cattle from the human food chain. USDA will continue its BSE
surveillance program.
Product Holding. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors
will no longer mark cattle tested for BSE as "inspected and passed"
until confirmation is received that the animals have, in fact, tested
negative for BSE. This new policy will be in the form of an
interpretive rule that will be published in the Federal Register.
To prevent the entry into commerce of meat and meat food products
that are adulterated, FSIS inspection program personnel perform ante-
and post-mortem inspection of cattle that are slaughtered in the
United States. As part of the ante-mortem inspection, FSIS personnel
look for signs of disease, including signs of central nervous system
impairment. Animals showing signs of systemic disease, including
those exhibiting signs of neurologic impairment, are condemned. Meat
from all condemned animals has never been permitted for use as human
food.
Specified Risk Material. Effective immediately upon publication
in the Federal Register, USDA will enhance its regulations by
declaring as specified risk materials skull, brain, trigeminal
ganglia, eyes, vertebral column, spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia
of cattle over 30 months of age and the small intestine of cattle of
all ages, thus prohibiting their use in the human food supply.
Tonsils from all cattle are already considered inedible and therefore
do not enter the food supply. These enhancements are consistent with
the actions taken by Canada after the discovery of BSE in May.
In an interim final rule, FSIS will require federally inspected
establishments that slaughter cattle to develop, implement, and
maintain procedures to remove, segregate, and dispose of these
specified risk materials so that they cannot possibly enter the food
chain. Plants must also make that information readily available for
review by FSIS inspection personnel. FSIS has also developed
procedures for verifying the approximate age of cattle that are
slaughtered in official establishments. State inspected plants must
have equivalent procedures in place.
Advanced Meat Recovery. AMR is an industrial technology that
removes muscle tissue from the bone of beef carcasses under high
pressure without incorporating bone material when operated properly.
AMR product can be labeled as "meat." FSIS has previously had
regulations in place that prohibit spinal cord from being included in
products labeled as "meat." The regulation, effective upon
publication in the Federal Register, expands that prohibition to
include dorsal root ganglia, clusters of nerve cells connected to the
spinal cord along the vertebrae column, in addition to spinal cord
tissue. Like spinal cord, the dorsal root ganglia may also contain
BSE infectivity if the animal is infected. In addition, because the
vertebral column and skull in cattle 30 months and older will be
considered inedible, it cannot be used for AMR.
In March 2003, FSIS began a routine regulatory sampling program
for beef produced from AMR systems to ensure that spinal cord tissue
is not present in this product. In a new interim final rule announced
today, establishments have to ensure process control through
verification testing to ensure that neither spinal cord nor dorsal
root ganglia is present in the product.
Air-Injection Stunning. To ensure that portions of the brain are
not dislocated into the tissues of the carcass as a consequence of
humanely stunning cattle during the slaughter process, FSIS is
issuing a regulation to ban the practice of air-injection stunning.
Mechanically Separated Meat. USDA will prohibit use of
mechanically separated meat in human food.
On Dec. 23, Veneman reported that a cow in Washington State has
tested positive for BSE. A swift and comprehensive investigation is
ongoing to trace the animal to a herd of origin, which is believed to
be located in Alberta, Canada, as well as track additional animals
that have entered the United States. (For the latest update on the
investigation, visit www.usda.gov.)
For more than a decade, the United States has had in place an
aggressive surveillance, detection and response program for BSE. The
United States has tested over 20,000 head of cattle for BSE in each
of the past two years, 47 times the recommended international
standard.
Since 1989, USDA has banned imports of live ruminants and most
ruminant products from the United Kingdom and other countries having
BSE.
In 1997, the FDA prohibited the use of most mammalian protein,
the main pathway to spread the disease should it be in the United
States, in the manufacture of animal feed intended for cattle and
other ruminants.
An independent analysis by Harvard in 2001 and again in 2003
shows that the risk of BSE spreading in the United States is low and
any possible spread would have been reversed by the controls we have
already put in place.
For more information please visit www.usda.gov.
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