Washington – The United States will close a gap in its defense against mad cow disease by changing feed regulations to mirror those in Canada, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford said Monday.
In remarks to a food-policy conference hosted by the Consumer Federation of America, Crawford said the new regulations would be coming soon. But he did not say when.
Canada has proposed regulations banning at-risk tissues – brains, spinal cords and other parts that can carry mad cow disease – from feed for all animals, including chickens, pigs and pets. The new rules have not yet taken effect; Canada’s current rules are similar to U.S. rules.
Ground-up cattle remains – leftovers from slaughtering operations – were used as protein in cattle feed until 1997 when a mad-cow outbreak in Britain prompted the U.S. to ban the feed industry from using such remains in cattle feed.
However, the U.S. ban doesn’t apply to feed for other animals, creating a potential pathway for the mad-cow protein to be fed back to cattle.
For example, it’s legal to add cattle protein to chicken feed.
Feed that spills from cages mixes with chicken waste on the ground, then is swept up for use in cattle feed. Besides the risk of transmission from uneaten feed, scientists believe chicken waste presents a risk because the bovine spongiform encephalopathy protein will survive the trip through a chicken’s gut.
The FDA promised to tighten the rules after the nation’s first case of mad cow disease was confirmed in December 2003.
