The Bush administration yesterday delayed issuing long-awaited measures — originally announced in January — to prevent the spread of mad cow disease.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration established one new rule, also proposed almost six months ago, to prevent tissue potentially tainted by mad cow disease from being used in food, dietary supplements and cosmetics.
“Although our current rules are strong, when it comes to public health and safety we cannot be content with the status quo. We must continue to make sure the public is protected to the greatest extent possible,” said Tommy G. Thompson, secretary for Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA.
Yesterday’s announcement by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration largely repeated a series of measures promised in January, after the United States’ first case of mad cow disease, discovered in December in a single dairy cow imported from Canada.
The FDA formalized a rule on using tissue considered high-risk for transmitting mad cow to humans, such as spinal cords and eyeballs, in food, dietary supplements and cosmetics.
But other measures will await further comment from the public and industry.
“The advance notice of proposed rulemaking will allow the public the opportunity to provide their input,” Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said.
The delays include potential bans on feeding poultry waste or cattle blood to other cattle, bans on rendering sick animals into feed, and eliminating high-risk tissues from pet food.
“We wanted to see them take action on the animal feed issue. They know what the problem is, they know how to fix it … yet here we are with another delay. In the meantime the safety of the beef supply is in question,” said Adam Goldberg, policy analyst with Consumers Union, the nonprofit organization that publishes Consumer Reports magazine.
Formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, mad cow disease is a chronic, degenerative disorder that attacks the central nervous system of cattle. It is most readily spread when infected animals are rendered into feed and fed to cattle.
Humans in rare instances have contracted the disease after eating tainted tissue. A Florida woman last month is believed to have died from the human variant of mad cow, the first such fatality in the United States. Authorities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe she contracted the disease while living in Britain.
The administration’s response to the mad cow case has reassured most U.S. consumers and helped buoy cattle markets.
But consumer groups remain concerned about beef safety. Furthermore, a series of potential missteps have spurred investigations by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general, growing criticism from some industry groups and increased scrutiny from lawmakers.
The USDA is being investigated for errors in recordkeeping during the original case, a move to allow beef from Canada into the United States despite rules limiting imports since discovery of the disease there, and failure to test a suspect animal in Texas.
The House Agriculture and Government Reform committees next week at a joint hearing plan to question Mrs. Veneman on the USDA’s mad-cow surveillance efforts. A new program has produced inconclusive test results, which have roiled cattle markets.
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