Seeking to bolster confidence in the safety of the nation’s beef supply, the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would ban cattle that are too sick or old to stand up from entering the human food chain and would begin implementing a system to identify and track cattle destined for slaughter.
A week after announcing the first known case of mad cow disease in the U.S., Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman outlined “aggressive” new safeguards she said were designed to further protect public health.
The controls, some of which the industry had previously opposed, come as U.S. representatives work overseas to reopen export markets closed to American beef last week and stabilize plummeting prices at home.
Veneman said agriculture officials have been considering some of the new safeguards for months, particularly after Canadian officials discovered a case of mad cow disease in Alberta in May. She said the measures were “not being taken just in response to our trading partners,” but are “being taken in light of the situation.”
Last week, a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state that could not stand up — known in the industry as a “downer” cow — was found to have mad cow disease, and the disclosure rocked the American beef industry at a time when producers were enjoying strong prices and heightened demand with the rising popularity of high-protein diets.
Although consumer demand for beef appears to have remained solid since last week’s announcement, cattle prices have fallen dramatically. Ninety percent of the export markets have been closed to American beef, or about 9 percent of the industry’s total production. Industry officials say if those markets stay closed, it’s likely to cut prices by up to 15 percent.
While heralding the new measures, Veneman and other federal officials Tuesday continued to emphasize that the food supply was safe and that higher-risk materials from the cow, which could have spread the disease, did not enter the human food chain. As a precaution, the USDA has ordered the recall of more than 10,000 pounds of meat from the diseased cow and 19 others that were slaughtered at the same time.
“We are operating out of an abundance of caution,” Ron DeHaven, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer, said of the new safeguards.
The ban on the use of downer cattle in the human food chain is something food safety groups have been urging for years. DeHaven said that in addition to that ban, the government also would require any animals who become sick or injured at the processing plant to be tested for the disease. He said test results should be available in 36 hours, and the meat would be withheld from market until the results were available.
The meat from the diseased cow in Washington state, which was slaughtered Dec. 9, entered the food supply before test results were known.
The safeguards also will prohibit the use of brains and other risky parts from cattle that are older than 30 months. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is believed to have an incubation period of three to six years. The diseased cow in Washington state, for example, was 6 1/2 years old.
The new measures also will impose greater controls on establishments that use a system designed to get more meat from cattle carcasses. Those systems run a greater risk for contaminating meat with the diseased brain or spinal cord tissue.
The new identification system for cattle would allow them to be tracked from birth farm to slaughterhouse. Such a system was already in development, but now the USDA will begin its implementation immediately at an estimated cost of more than $500 million in its first six years. Lack of such a system made it more difficult to track the origins of the diseased Holstein, who was found to have come to the U.S. from Canada.
The beef industries in Japan and Europe already include standards similar to those announced by the USDA on Tuesday. Even before the U.S. rules were tightened, meat from downer animals was banned from school lunches. Major fast-food chains, such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King, also have not used meat from downer animals.
Industry representatives said Tuesday they now support the USDA safeguards, although they had previously opposed bans on the slaughter of downer cattle. Chandler Keys, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said that while the food system was safe, “a lot of this has to do with the confidence level.”
“This is about consumer confidence, reacting to our consumers and what they want,” he said of the new safeguards.
Terry Stokes, chief executive officer of the beef association, said his organization has been involved in developing an identification system for cattle and would help implement it, as well as help ensure effective surveillance systems are in place for sick or older cattle.
Some beef producers, however, questioned whether USDA’s strict ban on the use of downer cattle was necessary or appropriate. Keys noted that downer cattle are a “very minute problem.” Veneman said 150,000 to 200,000 of the 35 million cattle slaughtered every year in the U.S. are downer cattle.
Some producers said a better approach would have been to allow the downer cattle to be slaughtered after they tested negative for the disease, since many simply are injured in transport. That approach also would ensure more sick cattle are tested, they said.
Veneman said the department would be looking for other ways to monitor downer cattle, including testing those sent to rendering plants. She also said the department will aggressively monitor older animals at higher risk for the disease.
Food safety groups praised the new safeguards, which went beyond what some critics–including Democratic presidential candidates critical of the Bush administration on the issue–had sought.
But others said the government still needed to do more. Michael Hansen, a senior research associate at Consumers Union, said the provisions were unlikely to reassure foreign markets and that widespread testing was necessary. He said the government also should ban the use of high-risk cattle tissue and materials in food for pigs and chickens, as it did for cattle, sheep and goats in 1997.
“These are good steps forward,” Hansen said. “But they still don’t go far enough.”
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New regulations
The Agriculture Department on Tuesday announced several new regulations to reduce the threat of spreading mad cow disease.
– Meat from “downer” cows–those that are unable to stand–will be banned from the human food chain.
– Creation of a national animal identification system to track cattle from the birth farm to slaughterhouse.
– Small intestines from cows will no longer be allowed into the U.S. food supply, nor head and spinal tissue from cattle older than 30 months.
– Any animal tested for bovine spongiform encyphalopathy (BSE) will not be allowed into the food supply until test results are confirmed.
– Air injection stunning of cattle, a pre-slaughter practice that can disperse brain tissue will be prohibited.
– Stricter controls will be placed on automated carcass stripping systems to better ensure that spinal cord tissue isn’t accidentally included in meat products.
Source: Associated Press
