The New York Times reports that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday proposed banning from animal feed “the brains and spinal cords of cows more than 30 months old. It also proposed banning the same parts of any animal not passed by inspectors as suitable for human food, any tallow that contained more than 0.15 percent protein and any meat contained in brain or spinal column that was separated from carcasses by machine.”
FDA says that the new rules tightens safeguards significantly and greatly reduce the possible occurrences of mad cow disease.
“The new proposal would still allow animals to be fed material that some scientists consider potentially infectious, including the brains and spinal cords of young animals; the eyes, tonsils, intestines and nerves of old animals; chicken food and chicken dung swept up from the floors of poultry farms; scrapings from restaurant plates; and calf milk made from cow blood and fat.”
The agency, according to Reuters, said “there was no need for other steps such as barring the use of cattle blood and blood products as feed supplements, the use of restaurant scraps and poultry litter, or requiring feed makers to restrict equipment, or even entire mills, to making feed for specific species.
However, the proposal – not scheduled to be enacted until next year, after a period of public comment – is hardly getting universal plaudits. Critics are calling the proposal “inadequate” and containing “"loopholes big enough to drive a cow through." Some analysts told Bloomberg that if the government hopes that the new rules will get the Japan to open its borders to US beef, they are likely to be disappointed; Japan has not been importing US beef since the first case of mad cow was identified in the US, and has criticized American safeguards as not meeting its standards.
FDA says that the new rules tightens safeguards significantly and greatly reduce the possible occurrences of mad cow disease.
“The new proposal would still allow animals to be fed material that some scientists consider potentially infectious, including the brains and spinal cords of young animals; the eyes, tonsils, intestines and nerves of old animals; chicken food and chicken dung swept up from the floors of poultry farms; scrapings from restaurant plates; and calf milk made from cow blood and fat.”
The agency, according to Reuters, said “there was no need for other steps such as barring the use of cattle blood and blood products as feed supplements, the use of restaurant scraps and poultry litter, or requiring feed makers to restrict equipment, or even entire mills, to making feed for specific species.
However, the proposal – not scheduled to be enacted until next year, after a period of public comment – is hardly getting universal plaudits. Critics are calling the proposal “inadequate” and containing “"loopholes big enough to drive a cow through." Some analysts told Bloomberg that if the government hopes that the new rules will get the Japan to open its borders to US beef, they are likely to be disappointed; Japan has not been importing US beef since the first case of mad cow was identified in the US, and has criticized American safeguards as not meeting its standards.
- KC's View:
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Hope you’re not reading this over breakfast.
Especially the stuff about how cows still will be allowed to be fed “the brains and spinal cords of young animals; the eyes, tonsils, intestines and nerves of old animals; chicken food and chicken dung swept up from the floors of poultry farms; scrapings from restaurant plates; and calf milk made from cow blood and fat.”
We have to be honest. Being a city kid with absolutely no knowledge of agriculture or ranching, a lot of this stuff is Greek to us. As it is to a lot of people.
What consumers want to know is this: What’s the risk?
And when looking for an answer to that question, they’ll read this paragraph from the NYT:
“It is widely acknowledged that the ban is imperfect: Some farmers, deliberately or accidentally, give cows ruminant feed. Also, chickens can legally be fed cow protein and cows can then be fed spilled poultry litter; rendering plants and trucks contain ruminant and nonruminant feed, which can mix.”
Maybe perfect bans aren’t possible. But phrases like “imperfect ban” or “90 percent chance” of stopping infectivity just don’t reassure the public.
