Mad Cow Disease still a threat - thanks to the FDA

FDA Fails to Protect Public from Mad Cow Disease - Again

New Proposed FDA Regulations Fail to Protect the Public from Mad Cow Disease - Again.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced new proposed rules in October to address the spread of mad cow disease in the United States. Unfortunately, these new rules continue to put the public at risk. The new rule would only require the exclusion of the brains and spinal cords of cattle 30 months of age and over from use in animal feed. This would still allow younger cattle, blood and blood products, some cattle fat, plate waste and poultry litter contaminated with cattle meat and bone meal, to be fed to cattle.

Despite the knowledge that mad cow (or BSE) is spread through animal feed contaminated with such materials, FDA still refuses to take the only step known to stop the spread of mad cow disease – a complete ban on feeding mammalian materials to food animals.

The second confirmed case of a BSE infected cow in the U.S. should have been a call to action for the U.S. to finally put meaningful protections in place. Instead, FDA seems more concerned about protecting industry than citizens. Take action now and tell FDA their refusal to close these dangerous loopholes is unacceptable.

Though the government has investigated three possible cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, in the U.S. – two of which were found to be positive for the fatal brain-wasting disease, they continue to leave the American public vulnerable. Scientists have concluded that exposure to the BSE agent causes a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD) in humans. The common characteristics of mad cow disease and nvCJD are that they are both invariably fatal.

In January 2004, the FDA announced they would close the loopholes in the feed ban to address the spread of mad cow. Now, nearly two years later, they have proposed yet another woefully inadequate regulation.

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[Information taken from the Center for Food Safety website]