News Release
|
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Monday, Jan. 26, 2004 |
Contact: FDA Press
(301)
827-6242 |
Expanded "Mad Cow" Safeguards
Announced
To Strengthen Existing Firewalls Against BSE Transmission
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today
announced several new public health measures, to be implemented by the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to strengthen significantly the
multiple existing firewalls that protect Americans from exposure to the
agent thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known
as mad cow disease) and that help prevent the spread of BSE in U.S.
cattle.
The existing multiple firewalls, developed
by both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and HHS, have been extremely effective in protecting the
American consumer from exposure to BSE. The first firewall is based on
import controls started in 1989. A second firewall is surveillance of the
U.S. cattle population for the presence of BSE, a USDA
firewall that led to the finding of the BSE cow in December. The third
firewall is FDA’s 1997 animal feed ban, which is the critical safeguard to
help prevent the spread of BSE through cattle herds by prohibiting the
feeding of most mammalian protein to ruminant animals, including cattle.
The fourth firewall, recently announced by USDA, makes sure that no bovine
tissues known to be at high risk for carrying the agent of BSE enter the human food supply regulated by USDA. The
fifth firewall is effective response planning to contain the potential for
any damage from a BSE positive animal, if one is discovered. This
contingency response plan, which had been developed over the past several
years, was initiated immediately upon the discovery of a BSE positive cow
in Washington State December 23.
The new safeguards being announced today are
science-based and further bolster these already effective
safeguards…
FDA will also prohibit certain currently
allowed feeding and manufacturing practices involving feed for cattle and
other ruminant animals. These additional measures will further strengthen
FDA’s 1997 “animal feed” rule…
“Today we are bolstering our BSE
firewalls to protect the public,” said FDA Commissioner Mark B. McClellan,
M.D., Ph.D. “We are further strengthening our animal feed rule, and we are
taking additional steps to further protect the public from being exposed
to any potentially risky materials from cattle. FDA’s vigorous inspection
and enforcement program has helped us achieve a compliance rate of more
than 99 percent with the feed ban rule, and we intend to increase our
enforcement efforts to assure compliance with our enhanced regulations.
Finally, we are continuing to assist in the development of new
technologies that will help us in the future improve even further these
BSE protections. With today’s actions, FDA will be doing more than ever
before to protect the public against BSE by eliminating additional
potential sources of BSE exposure.”
To implement these new protections, FDA will
publish two interim final rules that will take effect immediately upon
publication, although there will be an opportunity for public comment
after publication.
The first interim final rule will ban the
following materials from FDA-regulated human food, (including dietary
supplements) and cosmetics:
·
Any material
from “downer” cattle. (“Downer” cattle are animals that cannot walk.)
·
Any material
from “dead” cattle. (“Dead” cattle are cattle that die on the farm (i.e.
before reaching the slaughter plant);
·
Specified Risk
Materials (SRMs) that are known to harbor the
highest concentrations of the infectious agent for BSE, such as the brain,
skull, eyes, and spinal cord of cattle 30 months or older, and a portion
of the small intestine and tonsils from all cattle, regardless of their
age or health; and
·
The product
known as mechanically separated beef, a product which may contain SRMs. Meat obtained by Advanced Meat Recovery (an
automated system for cutting meat from bones), may be used since USDA
regulations do not allow the presence of SRMs in
this product.
The second interim final rule is designed to
lower even further the risk that cattle will be purposefully or
inadvertently fed prohibited protein. It was the feeding of such protein
to cattle that was the route of disease transmission that led to the BSE
epidemic in United
Kingdom
cattle in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
This interim final rule will implement four
specific changes in FDA’s present animal feed rule. First, the rule will
eliminate the present exemption in the feed rule that allows mammalian
blood and blood products to be fed to other ruminants as a protein source.
Recent scientific evidence suggests that blood can carry some infectivity
for BSE.
Second, the rule will also ban the use of
“poultry litter” as a feed ingredient for ruminant animals. Poultry litter
consists of bedding, spilled feed, feathers, and fecal matter that are
collected from living quarters where poultry is raised. This material is
then used in cattle feed in some areas of the country where cattle and
large poultry raising operations are located near each other. Poultry feed
may legally contain protein that is prohibited in ruminant feed, such as
bovine meat and bone meal. The concern is that spillage of poultry feed in
the chicken house occurs and that poultry feed (which may contain protein
prohibited in ruminant feed) is then collected as part of the “poultry
litter” and added to ruminant feed.
Third, the rule will ban the use of “plate
waste” as a feed ingredient for ruminants. Plate waste consists of uneaten
meat and other meat scraps that are currently collected from some large
restaurant operations and rendered into meat and bone meal for animal
feed. The use of "plate waste" confounds FDA's ability to analyze ruminant
feeds for the presence of prohibited proteins, compromising the Agency's
ability to fully enforce the animal feed rule.
Fourth, the rule will further minimize the
possibility of cross-contamination of ruminant and non-ruminant animal
feed by requiring equipment, facilities or production lines to be
dedicated to non-ruminant animal feeds if they use protein that is
prohibited in ruminant feed. Currently, some equipment, facilities and
production lines process or handle prohibited and non-prohibited materials
and make both ruminant and non-ruminant feed -- a practice which could
lead to cross-contamination…
For the
complete article: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2004pres/20040126.html
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