FDA warns livestock feed makers violating mad-cow rules

[Guest guest]

FDA warns livestock feed makers violating mad-cow rules

 

January 12, 2001

Web posted at: 9:33 AM EST (1433 GMT)

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of animal feed producers have violated regulations

meant to keep mad cow disease out of the country, says a new Food and Drug

Administration report.

 

No cases of mad cow disease have been found in U.S. cattle despite intense

monitoring, the FDA stressed in saying the violations don't mean the food supply

was tainted.

 

But armed with results from feed-mill inspections, the FDA is warning that

companies could face seizures, shutdowns, even prosecution if they continue to

violate rules meant to keep American livestock from eating slaughtered-animal

parts linked to the deadly brain disease.

 

Many companies in violation already have received warning letters, and some feed

has been recalled.

 

" Today's food is safe, " because slaughterhouse inspections have found no

suspicion of mad cow disease, FDA veterinary chief Dr. Stephen Sundlof said

Thursday.

 

But the rules are important in case the illness ever appears. Europe's mad-cow

crisis " is not a result of them not having adequate regulations in place -- it

was a problem of enforcement. And we don't want to end up like that, " Sundlof

added, promising more intense inspections.

 

The report comes a week before the FDA, warily watching Europe's deepening mad

cow crisis, also is scheduled to debate strengthening regulations on blood

donation meant to keep a human version of the disease from ever striking here.

 

Fear over mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, arose in the

mid-1990s when Britain discovered a new version of the human Creutzfeldt-Jakob

disease apparently was caused by eating infected beef. About 80 people have died

of the new CJD disease in Britain since then, and now France, Germany and other

European countries are grappling with infected livestock.

 

Animals get the disease by eating the tissue of other infected animals, and

British cows are thought first to have been infected by eating feed made from

sheep harboring a similar illness.

 

So the U.S. livestock industry in 1996 voluntarily banned sheep and certain

other animal parts from U.S. animal feed. The next year, the FDA formally banned

any proteins from cows, sheep, goats, deer or elk -- animals that get similar

brain-wasting diseases -- from feed for cows, sheep or goats. Poultry or pigs

can still eat those proteins, but feed must be labeled " do not feed to cows or

other ruminants " and companies must have systems to prevent accidentally mixing

up the feeds.

 

Yet FDA inspections found:

 

_Of 180 renderers -- companies that turn slaughtered animal parts into meat and

bone meal -- that handle risky feed, 16 percent lacked warning labels and,

worse, 28 percent had no system to prevent feed mixups.

 

_Of 347 FDA-licensed feed mills that handle risky feed, 20 percent lacked

warning labels and 9 percent lacked mixup-prevention systems.

--

 

Free email services provided by http://www.goodkarmacafe.com

 

 

 

 

Powered by Outblaze