Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators may announce within two months new limits on what cattle can be fed, as part of an effort to control mad cow disease.
``We hope that a rule will be forthcoming in the next month or two,'' Steve Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine, told reporters today on a conference call.
The U.S. in 1997 banned feeding ground-up parts of cattle back to other cattle, which scientists say spreads mad cow disease. After the U.S. found its first case of the brain-wasting livestock illness in December 2003, critics said ground-up parts of other animals should also be banned.
The new regulations would be part of the U.S. effort to protect public health and restore confidence in the $170 billion U.S. livestock industry. The first U.S. case of mad cow disease, in a dairy cow later traced to Canada, prompted more than 60 nations to place restrictions on U.S. beef, threatening exports valued at $3.8 billion in 2003.
Mad cow disease, which has a fatal human form, appears to spread when cows or steers eat ground-up parts of infected animals. The U.S. confirmed its second case of the disease in June in a 12-year-old animal born and raised in Texas.
The FDA rules may include a ban using table scraps in cattle feed, as well as poultry litter. Since chicken feed can still contain ground-up cattle parts, scientists say those remnants could be passed back to cattle in feed containing poultry litter.
Total Ban in U.K.
A total ban on all animal protein in cattle feed would mirror the position of the European Union and the U.K., where the disease, clinically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, first surfaced in the 1980's and which has had more than 150,000 cases.
The government today also said that it had concluded its investigation into the most recent case of mad cow disease and that the infected animal probably contracted the livestock illness by eating tainted feed before the 1997 ban. Some 67 head of cattle from the same farm where the infected cow was raised were killed and tested for mad cow disease and all tests were negative, officials said.
More Testing
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today said the USDA has started testing 20,000 healthy animals for BSE, part of its effort to determine the prevalence of the disease in U.S. herds. Since last June, the government has screened 452,760 head of cattle, concentrating on those that appeared sick when presented at slaughter or were already dead. Scientists say these animals would be most likely to have the disease. The screenings have provided only one positive result.
``We've started with the testing of the 20,000 healthy animals and we hope to have that done in the next 60 days,'' said Johanns, who said the screening program will continue indefinitely. The USDA initially said the program would last about 12 months to 18 months.
``I am not prepared to bring the surveillance program to a conclusion,'' Johanns said.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Daniel J. Goldstein in Washington at
dgoldstein1@bloomberg.net;
Kerry Young in Washington at
kdooley@Bloomberg.net.
