|
|
|
Congress Seeks Ban on Downer Animals
January 20, 2004 Reuters by Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer and animal-health groups, working
with some members of the U.S. House of Representatives, on Wednesday
will renew their call for broad prohibitions on "downer" animals
entering the food chain.
Following the Dec. 23 discovery of the first U.S. case of mad cow
disease, the groups are hoping for additional momentum for
legislation that would ban the use of all downer animals, including
cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and horses.
USDA recently banned downer cattle -- those that arrive at
slaughterhouses unable to walk -- from being processed into meat. The
ban represented a reversal for the USDA and for the U.S. cattle
industry and was in reaction to the lone case of mad cow found in a
Washington state Holstein. That animal was a downer, but its meat was
shipped off to grocery stores.
Rep. Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, last year nearly won passage
of a bill that would have banned the processing of all downer animals.
Jordan Goldes, a spokesman for Ackerman, said that with the recent
discovery of mad cow disease in the United States, the congressman
will try again to win passage of a bill that he will unveil to
reporters on Wednesday.
Animals other than cattle do not contract mad cow disease, or bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal brain-wasting disease that has
been linked to about 140 human deaths, mostly in Europe.
But swine, for example, could be suffering from other illnesses if
they could not walk, such as pneumonia or diarrhea, according to
veterinarians.
U.S. meat industry groups say additional controls on downer animals
should include strict definitions of such animals.
"The definition of a downer in the original description (of
legislation) was saying any animal that lies down. We would have
tremendous problems with that," said Kara Flynn, spokeswoman for the
National Pork Producers Council.
Flynn said that healthy swine often hesitate when they are being
moved from trucks to packing plants because of fear and being
unaccustomed to new surroundings after a life on the farm.
David Meisinger, a veterinarian and vice president for the National
Pork Board, which promotes the meat, said the industry opposes
allowing on-farm swine with broken legs to enter the food chain. But
he said packers decide whether they want to accept swine injured
during transport from the farm.
Dr. Jeff Tyler, at the University of Missouri's college of veterinary
medicine, said that unlike cattle, broken legs are the most common
reason swine become downer animals.
"Cattle are easier to transport ... they respond better to being
moved" because they spend their lives moving from facility to
facility. Swine, which stay in restricted areas on farms their whole
lives, balk at being in new environments, he said.
|
|
|
