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Post by ILB on Mar 16, 2006 16:28:00 GMT -5
Mad-Cow Feed Rules Should Ban Poultry Feces, U.S. Senator Says
March 14 (Bloomberg)
Poultry feces should be banned from cattle feed under rules to be revised this year because the waste may contain traces of mad cow disease, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin told U.S. regulators.
The practice of feeding cattle parts to poultry and then using chickens' waste in feed for cows might increase the risk of spreading the disease, Harkin, a Democrat, said at a Senate subcommittee hearing today in Washington. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to publish new rules on cattle feed that would allow farmers to continue feeding bird waste to cows.
Harkin is calling for stiffer regulations a day after U.S. Department of Agriculture officials confirmed a third case of mad cow disease. The Alabama cow was the second found with the disease among 645,000 cattle tested under an expanded surveillance program started in June 2004 after the first case. The U.S. slaughters about 35 million cattle a year.
``Both FDA and USDA are telling the public that the feed rules are a firewall,'' Harkin told acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach at the hearing to consider the agency's budget for the year starting Oct. 1. ``Now what I'm hearing is the feed rules are based on probabilities of 99 percent here and 99 percent there.''
Cattle farmers feed poultry stool to cows as a cheap source of protein. Poultry producers like the practice because it gives them a profitable way to dispose of their bird waste, Stephen Sundlof, the head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, told the subcommittee.
``It is something cattle seem to like to eat,'' he said.
Risk of Transmission
The risk of spreading the brain-wasting mad cow disease though poultry excrement is low and the FDA stands by allowing use of the waste in cattle feed, Sundlof said.
Canada and Europe have banned feeding poultry feces to cattle. Sundlof said the FDA is talking with its Canadian counterparts about the possibility of Canada loosening its ban on poultry waste.
``The amount of animal protein in litter is very, very small,'' Sundlof said. ``You can never say the risk is absolutely zero. Yes it is possible, but the probability of that occurring is very, very remote.''
Tommy Thompson, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, said in January 2004 that the FDA would prohibit the use of chicken pen litter in cattle feed. The revisions, which Sundlof said in February would be published by July 1, would be the first tightening of the rules since the FDA barred feeding cattle parts to cows in 1997.
Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the U.S. House panel that oversees the FDA budget, told von Eschenbach in February that the proposed rules abandon the tougher stance that Thompson had outlined.
Cattle Farmers
Harkin said today that his constituents in the cattle industry are concerned the loophole in the rules would lead to more cases of mad cow, which would hurt their business.
``I represent a lot of cattle people,'' Harkin said. ``They are concerned about the loss of confidence that may happen if more of these things pop up.''
The first U.S. case of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was discovered in December 2003, touching off a ban on the nation's beef by Japan, formerly the biggest importer of the product. Japan had only allowed imports to resume in December and then suspended them again in January following the discovery of banned spinal tissue in three boxes of a veal shipment.
Mad cow disease, which has a fatal human form, is thought to spread to people who eat the meat of infected cows.
The disease appears to stem from abnormal proteins, called prions, which occur in cattle's small intestines, brains, eyes and spinal cords. Scientists say cattle can contract the disease by eating such tissues from infected animals.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Shannon Pettypiece in Washington at spettypiece@bloomberg.net.
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