FDA proposal seeks to reduce mad cow risks

updated 8:39 p.m. ET Oct. 4, 2005

WASHINGTON - Seeking to close a gap in the nation’s defense against mad cow disease, the Bush administration on Tuesday proposed to eliminate cow brains and spinal cords from feed for all animals, including chickens, pigs and pets.

The government already bans virtually all cattle remains from cattle feed. The new proposal from the Food and Drug Administration “will make an already small risk even smaller,” acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach said.

The new proposal would reduce the risk of infection by 90 percent, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. After a public comment period, the rules should take effect sometime next year, he said.

However, critics said the new proposal falls far short of what FDA had promised 19 months ago, after the nation’s first case of mad cow disease was confirmed. At that time, FDA said it would add three other items to the list of materials banned from cattle feed: blood, restaurant plate waste and poultry litter. All are potential pathways for mad cow disease.

The proposal announced Tuesday is designed to eliminate the need for banning chicken litter from cattle feed because chickens would no longer be fed cow brains and spinal cords, among the cattle parts most likely to contain mad cow disease.

Contrary to FDA’s previous plan, the new proposal does not ban cattle blood, often fed to calves as a milk replacer, or restaurant leftovers from cattle feed. It also doesn’t ban chicken litter, which includes spilled feed as well as chicken manure, which scientists believe could contain mad-cow disease if the chickens had ingested tainted protein.

The feed rules are important because the only way cattle are known to get mad cow disease is from eating feed containing contaminated cattle remains.

Ground-up cattle remains — leftovers from slaughtering operations — were used as protein in cattle feed until 1997, when Britain’s outbreak prompted the U.S. to ban the use of those remains in cattle feed. The ban prohibited all cattle protein from being used in cattle feed, with the exceptions of poultry litter, plate waste and blood, which can contain cattle protein.

FDA’s new proposal would ban from livestock feed the brain and spinal cord — tissues that can carry mad cow disease— from cows older than 30 months. The age cutoff is specified because infection levels are believed to rise as cattle grow older.

The proposal does not include other tissues, such as eyes or part of the small intestine, considered “specified risk materials” by the Agriculture Department, which requires their removal from meat that people eat. FDA regulates animal feed.

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