Mad cow triggers safety measures

The Bush administration yesterday announced extensive measures to keep beef infected with mad cow disease out of the food chain.

Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman moved to assure consumers and trade partners that U.S. meat is safe, implementing one measure that earlier this year had been rejected by Congress and others to lessen any risk of people eating tainted meat.

Mrs. Veneman last week announced the United States’ first case of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. The fatal affliction rarely moves from cows to humans who eat diseased tissue.

But the announcement caused trade partners to close their markets to U.S. meat exports, shutting off a source of more than $3 billion for the industry, and dropped cattle futures the daily maximum for the fourth straight session yesterday.

“While we are confident that the United States has safeguards and fire walls needed to protect public health, these additional actions will further strengthen our protection systems,” Mrs. Veneman said.

All “downer” cattle, animals that are sick or injured and cannot walk, are now banned from the human food chain. The lone identified mad cow case was in a downer animal that was slaughtered, packed and shipped to consumers.

Congress this year considered legislation that would have implemented such a ban, but it died in conference under pressure from legislators representing the cattle industry.

Mrs. Veneman also said the government would speed up the implementation of a national animal-identification system to track the origins and destinations of animals and meat.

“We’re announcing fairly aggressive actions today. We think they are appropriate actions, but there will be follow-up measures that we will be assessing as we go forward,” she said.

The steps are not expected to drastically affect consumer prices, Mrs. Veneman said. For example, only about 150,000 to 200,000 downer cattle would be eliminated from a total slaughter of more than 35 million.

Several food-industry and consumer groups had lobbied for such changes in the mad cow inspection system.

“This quick and effective action should be a great comfort to our consumers and our trading partners,” said Tim Hammonds, president and chief executive of the Food Marketing Institute, a group representing food retailers and wholesalers.

But some details of the new system remain vague. For example, the Agriculture Department now tests for mad cow disease at slaughterhouses, usually targeting downer animals for the inspection.

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