Bovine spongiform encephalopathy primary prevention

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [2]

Primary Prevention

Husbandry practices in the United States relating to BSE

• Soybean meal is cheap and plentiful in the United States. As a result, the use of animal byproduct feeds was never common, as it was in Europe. However, U.S. regulations only partially prohibit the use of animal byproducts in feed. In 1997, regulations prohibited the feeding of mammalian byproducts to ruminants such as cows and goats.

• However, the byproducts of ruminants can still be legally fed to pets or other livestock such as pigs and poultry such as chickens. In addition, it is legal for ruminants to be fed byproducts from some of these animals. [3] A proposal to end the use of cow blood, restaurant scraps, and poultry litter(fecal matter, feathers) in January 2004 has yet to be implemented [4], despite the efforts of some advocates of such a policy, who cite the fact that cows are herbivores, and that blood and fecal matter could potentially carry BSE.

• In February 2001, the USGAO reported that the FDA, which is responsible for regulating feed, had not adequately policed the various bans. [5] Compliance with the regulations was shown to be extremely poor before the discovery of the Washington cow, but industry representatives report that compliance is now 100%. Even so, critics call the partial prohibitions insufficient.

• Indeed, US meat producer Creekstone Farms alleges that the USDA is preventing BSE testing from being conducted [6].

• Japan was the top importer of U.S. beef, buying 240,000 tons valued at $1.4 billion in 2003. After the discovery of the first case of BSE in the U.S. on December 23, 2003, Japan stopped U.S. beef imports in December 2003. In December 2005, Japan once again allowed imports of U.S. beef, but reinstated its ban in mid-January 2006 after a technical violation of the U.S.-Japan beef import agreement: a vertebral column, which should have been removed prior to shipment, was included in a shipment of veal.

• Tokyo yielded to U.S. pressure to resume imports, ignoring consumer worries about the safety of U.S. beef, said Japanese consumer groups. Michiko Kamiyama from Food Safety Citizen Watch said about this: "The government has put priority on the political schedule between the two countries, not on food safety or human health."

• Possibly due to pressure from large agribusiness, the United States has drastically cut back on the number of cows inspected for BSE.

• Sixty-five nations have full or partial restrictions on importing U.S. beef products because of concerns that U.S. testing lacks sufficient rigor. As a result, exports of U.S. beef declined from $3.8 billion in 2003, before the first mad cow was detected in the US, to $1.4 billion in 2005.

• On December 31, 2006, Hematech, a biotechnology company based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, announced that it had used genetic engineering and cloning technology to produce cattle that lacked a necessary gene for prion production - thus theoretically making them immune to BSE.

• As of October 26, 2009, a regulation issued by FDA in April 2009 came into effect establishing an enhanced BSE-related feed ban in the United States. This enhanced ban will further harmonize BSE feed control measures in the U.S. with those in Canada (see below). In addition, FDA continues to enforce its important 1997 mammalian-to-ruminant feed ban through its BSE inspection and BSE feed testing programs.

• As of July 12, 2007, an enhanced BSE-related feed ban External Web Site Policy came into effect in Canada. CFIA External Web Site Policy established this ban to more effectively prevent and quickly eliminate BSE from Canada. The enhanced ban prohibits most proteins, including potentially BSE infectious tissues known as “specified risk materials” (SRM) from all animal feeds, pet foods, and fertilizers, not just from cattle feed as required by the ban instituted in 1997. The 1997 feed ban in Canada was similar to the feed ban instituted in the United States that same year. As recently reported by CFIA, removing SRM from the entire animal feed system addresses risks associated with the potential contamination of cattle feed during production, distribution, storage, and use. Applying the same measure to pet food and fertilizer materials addresses the possible exposure of cattle and other susceptible animals to these products. CFIA expects that with this new ban, BSE should be eliminated from the Canadian cattle herd by about the year 2017.

• The Canadian-born cow confirmed to be infected with BSE in 2010 illustrates the difficulty in determining the effectiveness of previously instituted feed bans to prevent BSE transmissions. The initial feed bans established in both the United States and Canada were instituted in 1997. After an assessment by USDA and its Canadian counterparts, the Canadian feed ban was judged to be fully effectiveness as of March 1999. However, largely because of recognized limitations of this ban and the ban established in the United States, new, enhanced feed bans went into effect in Canada, July 12, 2007, and in the U.S., October 26, 2009. While USDA has confirmed no U.S.-born cattle as having a classic form of BSE, Canadian cattle born after March 1999 have been legally imported into the United States for any purpose since November 19, 2007.

BSE Control Measures

• Public health control measures, such as surveillance, culling sick animals, or banning specified risk materials, have been instituted in many countries, particularly in those with indigenous cases of confirmed BSE, in order to prevent potentially BSE-infected tissues from entering the human food supply.

• The most stringent control measures include a UK program that excludes all animals more than 30 months of age from the human food and animal feed supplies. The program appears to be highly effective.

• In June 2000, the European Union Commission on Food Safety and Animal Welfare strengthened the European Union's BSE control measures by requiring all member states to remove specified risk materials from animal feed and human food chains as of October 1, 2000; such bans had already been instituted in most member states. Other control measures include banning the use of mechanically recovered meat from the vertebral column of cattle, sheep, and goats for human food and BSE testing of all cattle more than 30 months of age destined for human consumption.