Bush Administration Will Sweep Mad Cow Crisis "Under the Rug" Until After Elections

FDA: Mad cow feed rules OK for now
Regulations revised in January may be enacted soon
By Jon Bonné
MSNBC
April 02, 2004

The Bush administration won't make additional changes to rules on cattle
feed unless additional cases of mad cow disease are found in the United
States, a senior official said Friday.

Food and Drug Administration Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford said his
agency might consider new rules if other cases emerge, including a potential
ban on some cattle parts known as specified risk material (SRMs) -- brains
and spinal cords, for instance -- in all animal feed.

³We¹re thinking about that,² Crawford told Reuters in an interview. However,
he added, ³If there are no other cases, there¹s not really a need to do
anything."

If additional cases are found through expanded testing by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, additional feed rules could include a ban on SRMs
from feed intended for poultry and swine. The FDA sets guidelines for what
can be included in feed for various animals. But its regulatory powers are
mostly limited to reviews of documents at feed plants, and it has little
ability to monitor how farmers use the feed.

Mad cow disease is believed to be spread by cattle eating brains and other
central nervous tissue that was banned from ruminant feed in 1997. However,
some recently found cases are thought to have occurred spontaneously.
Crawford also said the FDA will publish a regulation announced Jan. 27 that
it would ban cattle blood and poultry litter from feed for ruminant animals,
including cattle and sheep. Critics have been frustrated that the previously
announced rules have yet to be enacted.

"We can't imagine why it's taking two months to publish the proposal," said
Jean Halloran, director of Consumers Union's Consumer Policy Institute.
"We're very concerned that there's some effort to rethink or hold this
back."

Broader ban?

An international panel convened by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman
recommended in February that SRMs from any animal be banned from all types
of animal feed, including pet food. It recommended, at least temporarily,
that all animal protein, except fish, be banned from cattle feed. And it
suggested that the FDA's enforcement be expanded to include testing and
sampling of animal feed, which has become a standard practice in many other
countries.

DATA
BSE testing

Testing and slaughter statistics from 2003 for countries testing for Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy in cattle (New Zealand statistics from 2002).
Total cases are cumulative as of March 2004.

Australia
Tested: 464
Slaughtered: 9,229,000
Total cases: 0

Canada
Tested: 5,500 (to be 30,000 by 2009)
Slaughtered: 3,700,000
Total cases: 2

France
Tested: 2,900,464
Slaughtered: 5,800,000
Total cases: 891

Germany
Tested: 2,588,643
Slaughtered: 4,272,156
Total cases: 305

Great Britain
Tested: 394,685
Slaughtered: 2,300,000
Total cases: 183,803

Ireland
Tested: 700,344
Slaughtered: 1,800,000
Total cases: 1,377

Italy
Tested: 787,540
Slaughtered: 4,300,000
Total cases: 117

Japan
Tested: All (Japan tests every cow intended for human consumption)
Slaughtered: 1,160,000
Total cases: 11

New Zealand
Tested: 2,937
Slaughtered: 2,177,340
Total cases: 0

Switzerland
Tested: 179,455
Slaughtered: 700,000
Total cases: 453

United States
Tested: 20,453 (testing will be expanded in 2004)
Slaughtered: 36,853,000
Total cases: 1

Sources: MSNBC research, World Organization for Animal Health, U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization.

The European Union, where mad cow disease first appeared in Britain in the
late 1980s, has since 2000 banned all animal protein except milk and eggs
from use in feed for any animal that enters the human food chain.

By contrast, U.S. officials have stood by the 1997 feed rules implemented in
this country and in Canada, which prohibited feeding ruminant proteins to
other ruminants, but did not go as far as European regulations. According to
FDA records, dozens of feed mills and distributors have been cited for
violating the 1997 rules, as recently as last month.

After the first U.S. case of the disease was found in a Mabton, Wash., dairy
cow last December, USDA officials decided to ban SRMs from older cows as
human food; brains from older cattle, for example, would soon be off the
menu.

The USDA followed that some two months later with a plan to expand testing
of the U.S. cattle herd for the fatal brain disease. It expects to test
somewhere around 200,000 cows in the next 18 months, up from some 20,000
last year. Most of those will be sick cattle, including so-called "downer"
cows that cannot walk. Downers were also banned from use in the human food
chain, though officials acknowledge it can be difficult to determine whether
a cow is able to walk.

The agency quickly focused on downers after it determined that the infected
cow, which was imported from Canada, had been unable to walk. But several
witnesses have claimed it could walk, which prompted the USDA to investigate
its initial claims.

Crawford, who spoke with Reuters at a forum for cattle ranchers on mad cow
disease, did not provide additional details on other possible moves by the
FDA if additional cases are found.

Halloran, whose organization has pushed for stronger feed and testing rules,
praised the USDA for its recent approval of two rapid tests that detect the
disease in just a few hours. But she questioned the agency's continued
refusal to allow private companies to test their own cattle in addition to
the official efforts, which the government has stressed is for
"surveillance," not food safety.

"The whole idea that they're not allowing private enterprises to use them is
just incomprehensible," Halloran said. "It's astonishing."
Fight over Japan

Creekstone Farms, a smaller beef packer in Arkansas City, Kan., recently
petitioned the USDA to test all its animals, many of which it ships to
Japan. The agency says it is still reviewing the request, but has previously
rejected private requests to test for animal diseases.

The Japanese role in U.S. policies over mad cow has been a point of
contention in recent days. Japan, the largest importer of U.S. beef with
$1.4 billion in imports last year, banned American beef after the first case
was found last December.

On Thursday, the USDA on Thursday released a proposal by Veneman to her
Japanese counterpart that recommended another international panel help to
devise common cattle health standards for both countries. Japanese officials
rejected that proposal.

Along with the USDA, cattle producers and larger meat packers have accused
the Japanese, who test every cow that is eaten, of being unreasonable in
their demands that the U.S. cattle industry do the same before it reopens
its borders. The Bush administration insists there is no scientific reason
to do universal testing; many scientists agree, though at least one leading
researcher has endorsed 100-percent testing.

The U.S. beef industry was briefly hobbled by bans not only from Japan but
over 50 other nations, though at least two -- Mexico and Poland -- have
eased their restrictions. However, ranchers have cut back production and
beef prices are generally on the rebound.

While U.S. officials have threatened to take Japan to the World Trade
Organization if the ban persists, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick
told Reuters he was hopeful Japan would ease its stance.

³Japan benefits a lot from our market. It¹s important they play by the
rules, too,² Zoellick said. He would not answer whether Japan¹s ban on U.S.
beef was in violation of WTO rules.

Reuters contributed to this report.
© 2004 MSNBC Interactive