February 11, 2004 Des Moines Register by PHILIP BRASHER

Cattle brains and spinal cords -the tissue that can carry the disease -can be used in dog and cat food as well as in feed given to hogs and chickens.

Now, in the wake of the nation's first-ever mad cow case, the Bush administration is under pressure from scientists and consumer advocates to stop the practice.

The concern is not that hogs, chickens or the family pet will get sick, although cats are susceptible to the disease.

Instead, scientists fear products containing infected beef could accidentally contaminate feed intended for cattle, either through mix-ups on the farm or in feed mills. An international panel of experts that recently reviewed U.S. mad cow safeguards at the Bush administration's request said cattle brains and spinal cords "must be excluded" from all animal feed and pet food.

"The mistakes may not happen in the feed mill but could clearly happen on the farm, where there is no regulation and no one really monitoring the food-safety conditions," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.

Trade groups representing pet food companies and feed manufacturers also support new restrictions. Pet food companies are concerned about public perception. One major pet food maker, Iams Co., has posted a statement on its Internet site assuring customers that there is none of the high-risk cattle tissue in its products.

"We're in a unique business here because we're in such a high-profile product," said Nancy Cook, a lobbyist for the Pet Food Institute, the pet-food industry's trade group.

The issue caught the attention of some Iowa pet owners. Talk of even a remote possibility of his cat getting mad cow disease made Brad Chelesvig's eyes widen.

"Now I might go home and take a look at my cat food labels," said Chelesvig of Des Moines.

Jessica Pardekooper, a cat and dog owner who was shopping recently at a Des Moines pet store, said she definitely favors a ban.

"If it's something that I wouldn't want in my food, why would I want it in my cat's food?"

It's not only consumers like Chelesvig and Pardekooper who worry the $12.5 billion pet food industry. Some half-dozen countries, including Mexico and South Korea, have cut off imports of U.S. pet food; exports account for $1 billion of the industry's annual sales.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a concern because it is believed to cause a variation of Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain illness in humans.

The government's prime defense against the disease is a 1997 ban on using beef and bone meal in cattle feed. The international panel of experts warned that the ban isn't foolproof and that there probably have been other cases of the disease in the United States besides the one found in Washington state.

The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates animal feed, announced several new safeguards in January, including a ban on using cattle blood in the formula given to calves.

But FDA officials decided against imposing restrictions on pet food and hog and poultry feed, citing a Harvard University study that has been used by the government to measure the benefits of various control measures.

"We're trying to understand right now why there seem to be really two different views on the . . . issue," said Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

The FDA says house cats already are protected by existing safeguards.

The biggest losers from new FDA regulations could be the rendering companies that process livestock remains for use in feed ingredients, soap, cosmetics and other products. Prices for meat and bone meal have plunged from as much as $275 per ton before the Washington mad cow case to about $130 to $150 a ton due to lost export markets.

"We are not a not-for-profit organization," said Mark Meyers of Des Moines-based National By-Products, which operates rendering plants throughout the Midwest.

Ulrich Kihm, a Swiss scientist on the expert panel, said it only takes 10 milligrams of infected brain matter to transmit the disease to a cow. "This is nothing," he said.

Register Staff Writer Adam Morris contributed to this report.

Risks and actions

SUSCEPTIBLE: With the exception of cats, no pets or companion animals are known to be susceptible to the infectious agent that causes mad cow disease in cattle.

CATS: Approximately 90 cats in the United Kingdom and several in other European countries have been diagnosed with the feline version of the disease. Before it was recognized that they were susceptible, cats were exposed to the infectious agent through commercial cat food and through meat scraps provided by butchers.

FEED: In the United States, rendered products that are barred from cattle feed are permitted in pet food. Among such products are meat and bone meal. However, the Food and Drug Administration says that the safeguards it has put into place to prevent mad cow disease in the U.S. have protected cats. The agency continues to review the safeguards.