Texas Purina Mills admits cow rule broken

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KD Weber <wvadreamin

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Saturday, 27 December 2003 6:59

Jan. 2001 Texas

 

 

Purina Mills admits cow rule broken

Jan 27 2001 By Steve Brisendine Associated Press

 

The quarantine of 1,221 cattle and recall of 22 tons of feed out of fears

about mad cow disease may have been caused by a mill that disclosed a

possible rule violation.

A Purina Mills Inc. plant may have mixed cow meat and bone meal into a feed

supplement that was put on the wrong truck, said Beverly Boyd, spokeswoman

for the Texas Department of Agriculture.

 

A Purina Mills spokesman said Friday the company had begun phasing out the

use of meat and bone meal from cows in any of its livestock feed. Beef

byproducts are banned for cattle or sheep feed but commonly used in swine

and poultry feed.

 

``This (quarantine) just happened to be a matter of timing. But as of last

night, we are no longer using it,'' said Max Fisher, a spokesman for St.

Louis-based Purina Mills, the nation's largest maker of livestock feed.

``It's a voluntary move on our behalf and takes us down to a zero risk

factor for a misformulation in the future.''

 

The questionable feed supplement was manufactured by a Purina Mills plant in

Gonzales, Texas, on the evening of Jan. 16 and recalled on Jan. 17 after a

standard check revealed the mistake, Fisher said. The company said it called

the Food and Drug Administration after the error was discovered through

internal controls.

 

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is believed to cause

variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal human equivalent of mad cow

disease. Some 80 Europeans have died of new variant CJD since the mid-1990s,

and beef sales have plummeted on that continent.

 

The disease has never been found in U.S. cattle, and in its news release,

Purina stressed that it only uses meat and bone meal from U.S.-grown animals

and only in those products in which it is allowed.

 

=====================================

 

 

Mad cow scare caused Purina quarantine, government says

January 26, 2001 By Steve Brisendine, Associated Press

The quarantine of a Texas cattle herd that may have eaten feed banned in the

U.S. to prevent mad cow disease shows how well government protections on the

food supply work, an industry official said. But while industry and

government officials stress that the risk is small, cattle ranchers fear the

mix-up might be enough to taint public perception, just as beef was

rebounding after a decade of flat sales.

" The key message consumers need to hear is that we have taken aggressive

steps in the U.S. to keep problem from occurring, and that U.S. beef

continues to be wholesome, nutritious food, " said Todd Domer, a spokesman

for the Kansas Livestock Association.

 

U.S. beef consumption rose 2 percent in 1999 to 66.2 pounds per person, the

highest since the 1980s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

For much of the '90s, a nation long known for its love of burgers and steaks

seemed to have had its fill of red meat amid concerns it might be linked to

high cholesterol and heart disease.

 

Cattlemen say just mentioning the possibility of the brain-wasting disease

infecting the nation's beef supply could cause consumers to think twice

about buying beef and cause those numbers to retreat. " Unfortunately,

perception amounts to a lot in a lot of things, and this is not any

different than a lot of them, " said rancher Adrian Casey, who shoveled

manure from a stall late Thursday at a stock show in Fort Worth.

 

The questionable feed supplement was manufactured by a Purina Mills plant in

Gonzales, Texas. The company said the error was discovered through its

" quality assurance program " of internal controls, and it called the Food and

Drug Administration. Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity identified

the feedlot as Vaqueros of Texas Cattle Feeders in Floresville, 28 miles

southeast of San Antonio. Purina notified nearby feedlot operators of the

FDA investigation.

 

" It scared us half to death, " said Caroline Morris, whose husband owns

Morris Cattle Co. in Pearsall, Texas. " It would hurt our business if the

housewives thought there was some of that (BSE) in the United States. " Burt

Rutherford, a spokesman for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, praised

the mill for quickly notifying the FDA and the feedlot. " They've pulled

samples of feed and are running tests on it now, " Rutherford said. " We

should know the results early next week. "

 

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is believed to cause

variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal human equivalent of mad cow

disease. Some 80 Europeans have died of new variant CJD since the mid-1990s,

and beef sales have plummeted on that continent.

 

" For some reason, publicity surrounding this has kind of taken on a life of

its own, even though the problem is across the big pond, " Domer said. The

disease has never been found in U.S. cattle, and in its release Purina

stressed that it only uses meat and bone meal from U.S.-grown animals and

only in those products where it is allowed. As a precaution, the government

has banned cows and sheep from being given feed made from animal parts, no

matter what their country of origin.

 

A recent FDA report found hundreds of feed makers were violating labeling

requirements and other rules associated with the ban. The National

Cattlemen's Beef Association has organized a private meeting Monday

involving representatives of the industry and officials from the FDA and the

Agriculture Department to press for better compliance.

 

" We certainly want feed companies to be in compliance, " Domer said. " We even

have members talking to their feed companies making sure they're in

compliance. They're that serious about the situation. "

 

 

=====================================

Quarantined cattle may have eaten banned feed

 

Jan. 26, 2001 By Kathryn A. Wolfe, Houston Chronicle

More than 1,200 cattle on a feedlot near Gonzales have been quarantined amid

questions about whether they ate a type of feed that was banned in the wake

of mad cow disease deaths in Britain.

Feed containing cow meat and bone, banned for cattle by the Food and Drug

Administration in 1997, may have accidentally been distributed to the

feedlot by Purina Mills' plant in Gonzales.

 

" The feed was placed into a feeder, and it may have been that some of the

cattle had gotten around to eating it, " said Max Fisher, a spokesman for

Purina Mills.

 

Routine quality testing at Purina Mills turned up the mistake, which

violated the ban. The next day the 22 tons of feed, which normally would be

given to swine and poultry, was recalled and the FDA notified.

 

" We requested ... that these cattle and any carcasses that had already been

made from the cattle not be released into the food chain, " said Murray

Lumpkin, FDA senior medical adviser. Lumpkin said as far as the FDA is

aware, none of the cattle in question left the feedlot before the quarantine

was instituted.

 

The FDA is investigating the violation, including testing the feed and

cattle, and expects to make a decision regarding the animals by the end of

the month.

 

=====================================

 

Press Release

Carla Everett, Public Information

Texas Animal Health Commission

1-800-550-8242 ext 710.

" Please check your sources and your information more carefully! [if the shoe

fits, wear it. -- webmaster]

 

During the past 48 hours, the media has focused on a situation in Texas

regarding a possible feed contamination issue. We are taking this

opportunity to advise you of the facts surrounding this situation, in order

to avert undue concern:

 

According to reports from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), about a

week ago, some cattle in a Texas feedlot may have consumed some feed that

contained mammalian protein (meat and bone meal). Since l997, the FDA has

banned mammalian protein in feed for ruminants (multi-stomached animals),

such as cattle.

 

The error was noted within hours and was reported by the feed manufacturer

to the FDA. The use of the lot of feed in question was suspended and the

feedlot is voluntarily holding the cattle on site. The FDA is analyzing

samples of the feed. The feed analysis should be complete by Monday evening,

January 29, 2001, at which time, the FDA will evaluate the next step

regarding these animals. FDA officials expect to make a decision regarding

the animals by Jan. 31.

 

* This is not a disease situation.

 

* The FDA is determining if mammalian protein is contained in this feed. The

meat and bone meal, if present, was derived from US-origin animals. This

situation is NOT a disease issue. It is a possible contaminated, or

adulterated, feed occurrence and is under the jurisdiction of the FDA.

 

* The US does not have BSE, and the ban on feeding mammalian protein to

ruminants is a preemptive precaution.

 

* The FDA has not released the name of the feed company or the feedlot and

its location. Please refer interested parties to Mr. Lawrence Bachorik, at

the Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of this situation. Mr.

Bachorik's number is 1-301-827-6250.

 

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/jan01_late.html

 

================================

 

Britain put 69 countries at Risk of BSE

Sunday 28 January 2001 Independent By Paul Lashmar

Britain could have spread BSE to 69 countries by selling them meat-and-bone

cattle meal knowing that it might have been contaminated with the disease .

 

The revelation, in previously unpublished Ministry of Agriculture documents,

shows the extent of Britain's exports of the potentially contaminated

material. Between 1988, when meat-and-bone meal (MBM) was banned in Britain

and 1996, thousands of tons were sent to European nations such as the

Netherlands, France and Germany. Israel imported more than 31,000 tons, and

Russia more than 3,000 tons.

 

Large amounts were sent to developing countries, particularly after European

countries banned British MBM feed. Indonesia imported 60,000 tons from

Britain between 1991 and 1996 and Kenya imported 521 tons between 1987 and

1996. The figures include some poultry feed, which continued to be sold

legally after 1996. Britain also exported more than three million live cows

to 36 countries between 1988 and 1996.

 

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation said that all countries

which imported cattle MBM feed from Western Europe - especially Britain -

since the 1980s could be at risk from the disease.

 

Until now, all known cases of BSE and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, its

brain-wasting human form, have been reported in Europe, mainly in Britain.

But the disease is starting to emerge in other countries. A woman died of it

in South Africa in December. [Not confirmed as nvCJD -- webmaster]

 

Some experts fear that the exports will lead to BSE epidemics in some of the

poorest countries in the world. Stephen Dealler, a clinical microbiologist

and BSE expert, said: " Exporting MBM feed that was potentially BSE-infected

was like selling boxes of blank bullets containing a few live ones and

saying it's not your problem if someone gets shot.

 

" We have only just managed to get control of BSE here and that is with a

very tough regime. It is going to be much harder in African and Middle

Eastern countries. " In the UK, more than 170,000 cattle have been diagnosed

with BSE and about 1,300 on the Continent.

 

When the ban was imposed on domestic sales of the feed in 1988, companies

turned to the EU market and when that too collapsed after bans, new markets

were found in developing countries and other non-EU countries.

 

Phillip Whitehead, a Labour MEP who sat on the parliament's 1998 BSE

inquiry, said no assessment has been made of the likelihood of BSE outbreaks

in most non-EU countries that imported the British MBM feed. " It was an

irresponsible action to continue to export MBM feed after we had banned it

here, " he added. " It was appalling that we continued to flog it abroad. "

 

The government banned MBM cattle feed on 12 July 1988, just three months

after government animal health experts had realised it was responsible for

the rapid spread of BSE

 

Evidence provided to the British BSE inquiry headed by Lord Phillips of

Worth Matravers showed that leading British officials in effect washed their

hands of moral responsibility over the dangers of MBM feed spreading BSE to

infection-free countries, leaving it to individual countries to decide

whether to import British feed or prevent it being given to cattle.

 

Trade organisations say that some exported MBM feed was subject to high

temperature treatment that would have destroyed BSE agents. The UK

Renderers' Association, whose members were largely responsible for exports,

agreed that such sales increased in the early 1990s. " But allegations of

dumping, following plummeting prices, are completely untrue, " it said.

 

==================================

 

U.K.'s exports may have expanded the boundaries of mad-cow disease

26 Jan 01 By Steve Stecklow Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

In July 1988, Britain banned the practice of feeding cattle with meal

containing the ground-up remains of cows. The move was intended to halt the

spread of so-called mad-cow disease, which scientists blamed on infected

feed.

 

For the next eight years, however, British feed makers legally continued to

export tons of potentially infected meat-and-bone meal made from pulverized

cattle parts, despite concerns expressed by some government officials that

such shipments risked spreading the disease abroad. Moreover, as mad-cow

worries sharply reduced demand for the high-protein feed supplement in the

European Union, and prices fell by more than half, British companies

increased their exports of the product beyond the EU, especially to Asia,

government records show.

 

It wasn't until 1996, the year that the British first disclosed that the

fatal, brain-wasting cattle disease apparently had jumped the species

barrier from cows to humans, that Britain finally banned exports of

meat-and-bone meal. To date, 83 people are believed to have died here from

the human form of mad-cow disease, called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob

disease; two deaths have been reported in France, and one in Ireland.

 

The British exports of a potentially infected feed material show that the

boundaries of the mad-cow epidemic are more porous than many people

realized, and that containing it may be much harder than expected. The

health repercussions still are unknown, since the incurable disease can take

years, or possibly decades, to incubate in humans. Adding to the uncertainty

is the fact that many nations haven't been systematically testing cattle or

cattle feed.

 

British agricultural and public-health authorities debated the propriety of

allowing the country's feed industry to continue exporting meat-and-bone

meal after Britain banned its use in cattle feed. But they ultimately left

the decision to veterinary authorities in the importing countries, arguing

that those officials had been adequately informed of the risks.

 

Now, some European officials are blaming those exports for a recent surge in

cases of diseased cattle on the Continent, which has sparked widespread

consumer panic. " It is our English friends who exported this evil, " French

Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany told a Spanish newspaper this month. " They

should be morally condemned for this. "

 

'It's a Trade'

Some health experts also are warning that the cattle disease formally known

as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, may start cropping up well

beyond Europe. British export and other records show that the potentially

infected meal was shipped in varying amounts to dozens of countries,

including the U.S., Thailand, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and parts of Eastern Europe

and Africa. There " has to have been some infectivity, " says Maura Ricketts,

a medical officer at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

 

Feed exporters strongly deny they were dumping the meal, which even the

British continued to use as a protein supplement for pigs and poultry. " It's

a trade, " says Robert Peck, director of David T. Boyd, a feed merchant based

in London. " We don't hold a gun to their head. "

 

Between 1988 and 1996, Britain also exported 3.2 million live cattle to 36

countries, reaching every continent. It thought the animals were healthy

because they weren't believed to have been fed any meal containing cattle

products. But the threat that some of the cattle may have been infected

isn't theoretical; over the years, mad-cow disease cases involving imported

British cattle have been reported not only in Europe, but also in Canada,

Oman and the Falkland Islands.

 

There is also the risk of a domino effect. Even though the British stopped

exporting meat-and-bone meal, other European countries shipped tons of their

own, and didn't ban use of the product until this month. While the cases of

BSE on the Continent so far haven't approached the epidemic proportions in

Britain, it is possible some of that European meal was contaminated with

infected animal parts.

 

In fact, until October 2000, many EU countries allowed meat-and-bone meal to

contain the rendered animal parts that are considered to pose the greatest

risk of infection. Those include the brain and the spinal cord.

 

Britain initially banned those parts in animal feed in September 1990, but

it allowed meal containing them to continue to be exported to non-EU

countries until July 1991. The bans weren't very effective; a recent

government inquiry found that the high-risk tissue continued to be rendered

into feed " both deliberately and by accident " until controls were stepped up

several years later.

 

EU members on the Continent also have exported millions of live cattle all

over the world. Just last month, Kuwait reported a suspected BSE case in a

three-year-old dairy cow that was imported from an undisclosed European

country.

 

But predicting where the disease might appear in cattle and humans, and

when, is almost impossible. For one thing, it usually takes about five years

for an infected cow to display symptoms, which include disorientation and a

staggering gait. At present, there are no early-detection tests for live

animals.

 

In the case of British feed, it also isn't even clear how much individual

countries imported, because British records lump together meat-and-bone meal

with other feed materials, such as pulverized chicken. For example, while

the records state that a total of 36,000 tons of animal feed materials were

exported in 1989, one major grain exporter estimates that less than half

that amount, or about 15,000 tons, was meat-and-bone meal. In later years,

British exports probably averaged about 8,500 to 9,000 tons annually, says

Paul Foxcroft, sales director of Prosper De Mulder Ltd., Britain's largest

processor of animal byproducts.

 

Hard to Trace

Tracing specific batches of material also is tough because, like oil, animal

feed is a globally traded commodity. For example, Belgium, the Netherlands

and France, which all imported the British meal, routinely shipped some of

it to the Middle East or North Africa in concentrated form. And before being

fed to cows, meat-and-bone meal is mixed with other feed materials, often

produced locally. " If you're given a sample, you couldn't say where it has

come from, " says Mr. Foxcroft.

 

The WHO's Dr. Ricketts says another factor in analyzing a country's risk for

BSE is whether there is a local animal-rendering industry. If there is,

inedible parts of infected animals may have been " recycled " into

domestically produced feed given to other animals, thereby spreading the

infectious agent even further. Scientists say that's how the disease swept

through the British cattle herd; to date, there have been about 180,000

cases here, but the disease is on the wane in Britain.

 

Adding to the overall uncertainty: poor surveillance in many countries.

Until recently, Germany and Spain insisted that their herds were BSE-free.

But when the EU's executive arm recently mandated massive testing, new cases

suddenly emerged, including some in those two countries. " If you don't look

for something, you won't find it, " says Mr. Peck, the British animal-feed

dealer.

 

U.S. officials don't dismiss the possibility that BSE could turn up in

America, but they play down the possible risks from the 21 tons of animal

feed that British export records list as having been shipped to the U.S. in

1989. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it can find no records of the

shipment. But Linda Detwiler, a senior staff veterinarian, says there may be

an " error in our database. "

 

Dr. Detwiler says the U.S. has traced all but about 32 of 496 live cattle

that it imported from Britain and Ireland in the 1980s. In a " worst-case

scenario, " she says, the missing 32 " entered the food chain. " The agency

also traced all 42 cows imported from Europe in 1996 and 1997, and placed

them under quarantine; the U.S. imposed a ban on cattle imports from Europe

in 1997. While it is known that 52 of the imported British animals still

alive in 1995 came from possibly infected herds, all but four were tested

for BSE, and the results were all negative. The remaining four, under

quarantine on a Vermont farm, have displayed no symptoms.

 

Other countries may be at greater risk. Indonesia, for example, imported

meat-and-bone meal from Britain and Italy until 1997, when the country

banned its use in animal feed. " Based on the laboratory tests being carried

out, there has not been any indication that the cattle are being infected by

BSE, " says Lumban Toruan, an Indonesian Agriculture Ministry official.

Still, he says testing began only about three months ago.

 

In Thailand, which imported meat-and-bone meal from Britain until 1996 and

later bought it from other European countries, officials express confidence

that the country's cattle are BSE-free. They say the meal was used to feed

only pigs and, until 1995, poultry.

 

But the British found that feed manufacturers and farmers often weren't very

careful in keeping feed for pigs and poultry separate from cattle feed. It

takes only a single gram of infected material -- about the size of a

peppercorn -- to infect a cow, and the British say thousands of cattle were

inadvertently infected this way. But even though one of Thailand's

animal-feed producers makes feed for cattle, pigs and poultry all at the

same plant, Laddawalaya Ratananakorn, of Thailand's Ministry of Agriculture,

says random tests of cattle feed have never revealed any traces of

meat-and-bone meal.

 

In Taiwan, officials say the country stopped importing meat-and-bone meal

from Britain and other European countries 10 years ago, and that sample

tests on cattle and feed have shown no evidence of BSE. But Taiwan has

continued to allow farmers to feed cows with material containing rendered

cattle parts, a practice that was banned throughout the EU in 1994 and in

the U.S. in 1997. An official of Taiwan's Department of Animal Industry says

that on Jan. 9 the agency issued new regulations banning the practice, and

the rules are expected to take effect soon.

 

A two-year British government inquiry into Britain's mad-cow crisis,

completed last October, revealed that government officials debated

internally for more than a year about the ethics of continued meat-and-bone

meal exports.

 

Not 'Morally Indefensible'

In a letter dated June 15, 1989, Keith Meldrum, then Britain's chief

veterinarian, explained the government's position to the president of the

British Cattle Veterinary Association: " It is our view that the importing

country must determine its own import conditions. " Britain, he wrote, had

publicized its BSE problems through published articles and international

organizations.

 

" We do not consider it morally indefensible to export meat-and-bone meal to

other countries since it may be used for feeding to pigs and poultry in this

country, " wrote Mr. Meldrum.

 

Other government officials disagreed. Sir Donald Acheson, the country's

chief medical officer, told the inquiry that, at the urging of Hilary

Pickles, another Department of Health medical officer, he repeatedly

questioned the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the issue, but

to no avail.

 

On Jan. 3, 1990, Sir Donald wrote to Mr. Meldrum, suggesting that Britain

either ban the export of meat-and-bone meal or require labeling " to make it

absolutely clear " that it shouldn't be fed to cows. " Unless some such action

is taken the difficult problems we have faced with BSE may well occur in

other countries who import U.K. meat-and-bone meal, " he wrote.

 

According to minutes of an internal meeting at the Agriculture Ministry on

Jan. 24, 1990, Mr. Meldrum brought up Sir Donald's letter. " We were

currently exporting meat-and-bone meal to a number " of non-EU countries, the

minutes state. " If we informed them that these products were not permitted

to be fed to ruminants in the U.K., Mr. Meldrum was convinced other

countries would cease to import them. "

 

The minutes go on to state that the then-agriculture minister, John Gummer,

said Britain " had a moral obligation " to alert countries about its ban on

the use of the meal for cattle, and asked Mr. Meldrum to write to those

countries that imported it. Documents show he later wrote to chief

veterinary officers of 25 countries.

 

Mr. Meldrum replied to Sir Donald on Feb. 9, 1990, stating that other

countries had been kept fully informed about BSE " and its likely cause " and

noted that Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Israel had already banned

imports of British meat-and-bone meal.

 

" I hope that you will accept that we have approached this in a responsible

manner, and that it is not necessary to adopt the measures you suggest, " Mr.

Meldrum wrote.

 

In an interview last week, Mr. Meldrum, now retired, said the decision on

meat-and-bone meal exports wasn't his alone but was made by many Agriculture

Ministry officials " after detailed consultation. " He noted that the

government inquiry chose not to criticize him or other British officials for

the continued exports of the meal or for " the manner in which importing

countries were warned of the danger that it posed. "

 

Asked whether he still believed the exports were appropriate, Mr. Meldrum

declined to comment.

 

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/jan01_late.html#69