International Expert Panel Says Mad Cow is Likely Spreading in US

Expert Panel Sees More U.S. Mad Cow Cases
Feb. 4, 2004
By Randy Fabi

RIVERDALE, Md (Reuters) - The U.S. government should ban cattle brains and
spinal material in livestock feed and pet food to prevent the spread of mad
cow disease, an international panel said on Wednesday, saying more U.S.
cases were probable.

The panel noted there was a "high probability" that other infected cattle
have been imported from Canada and possibly Europe. Their report gave no
estimate of how many animals, and said that contaminated material from them
"has likely" been rendered into cattle feed.

Mad cow disease is spread through livestock feed contaminated with the
brain, spinal cord or nervous system tissue, known as specified risk
material (SRM), of infected animals.

"All SRM must be excluded from all animal feed, including pet food," the
panel's chairman, Urlich Kihm, told a special meeting of USDA officials.
The panel also said the USDA should consider banning from human food the
brain and spinal cords from all cattle over 12 months of age. Currently,
such material is banned only from cattle over 30 months of age.

The government should ban all animal protein -- such as meat and bone meal
from rendered animals -- from cattle feed, the panel said. Such a ban "is
justified partly due to the issues of cross-contamination," it said.
Another necessary step is for the United States to test all "at risk" cattle
over 30 months of age, the experts said. Those would include animals that
die on the farm, which may require offering financial incentives to farmers.

The panel was appointed by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ann
Veneman after the United States' first case of the brain-wasting disease was
reported in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state on Dec. 23. Discovery
of the disease halted some $3.8 billion in annual American beef exports.

The infected U.S. cow found by the USDA last month was imported from
Alberta, Canada, in 2001. Canada reported its own first domestic case of mad
cow disease last May.

Kihm said the United States "could have a case a month" of mad cow disease.
He said he based that estimate on the experience of nations such as Denmark
and Italy, and new studies showing that as little as 10 milligrams of
infected brain tissue could infect a cow.

However, he said the United States would not see the kind of outbreak that
hit Britain in the 1980s. Some 140 people, most in Britain, have died of the
human form of the illness.

Another member of the panel, William Hueston, director of the Center for
Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota, told reporters
that he "wouldn't be surprised if they found two or three more cases in the
United States."

U.S. cattle futures contracts fell the daily limit of 1.5 cents per pound on
the new report. In midday trading, the April contract was at 71.375 cents
per pound.

Government officials downplayed Kihm's remarks.

"Even if there are more cases, we have already taken the measures that are
needed to protect public health," said Ron DeHaven, the USDA's chief
veterinarian, who is leading the investigation into the infected Washington
state cow.

Another USDA official said scientific evidence suggests a "very, very low
prevalence" of the disease in the United States, which slaughtered nearly 36
million cattle last year.

Stephen Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for
Veterinary Medicine, said the panel's report "paints a very different
picture" than a risk analysis prepared in 2001 by Harvard University
researchers. That report concluded existing U.S. safeguards were adequate to
deal with the disease.

Sundlof said the FDA had made no decisions on whether to follow the new
recommendations.

Kihm was scheduled to give the recommendations to Veneman later on
Wednesday.

The USDA plans to boost mad cow tests to about 40,000 cattle this year,
double the number tested last year.

"We would urge the government to come out with restrictions on specified
risk materials that reflect the findings of this review panel," said
Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the consumer group Center
for Science in the Public Interest.