The
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a final regulation
barring certain cattle materials from all animal feed, including pet
food.
FDA regulates animal feed and drugs. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates meat. Together the agencies
enforce regulations that ensure that specific risk materials are kept
out of the human food supply.
Some features of the final rule:
- The
final rule strengthens existing safeguards to protect animals and
consumers against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as
"mad cow disease").
- The rule builds on FDA's 1997 feed
regulation, which prohibited the use of certain proteins from mammals
in feed for ruminants (such as cows, sheep and goats).
- The
cattle materials that can no longer be used in animal feed are the
tissues that have the highest risk for carrying the agent thought to
cause BSE. These high-risk cattle materials are the brains and spinal
cords from cattle 30 months of age and older. Removing these high-risk
materials from all animal feed will prevent any accidental feeding of
these materials to cattle.
- This final rule is
effective 12 months from April 23, 2008, to allow the livestock, meat,
rendering, and feed industries time to adapt their practices to comply
with the new regulation.
Scientific
studies have linked BSE to cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
(vCJD) in humans, a fatal disease that most likely results from people
consuming infectious material from cattle with BSE.
Rules
issued in 2004 prohibited specific risk materials from use in the human
food supply. There have been no vCJD cases linked to consuming U.S.
beef, and the risk of BSE among U.S. cattle is low.
For More Information
FDA Press Release
www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01823.html
FDA Web Page: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)
www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/bse.html
Date Posted: April 25, 2008
