- RIVERDALE, Md. (Reuters)
-- A panel of international experts said on Wednesday there was a "high
probability" of more cases of mad cow disease in American cattle,
and recommended the U.S. government ban cattle brains and spinal material
in all livestock feed and pet food as a safeguard.
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- The panel was appointed by Agriculture Secretary Ann
Veneman after the United States' first case of the brain-wasting disease
was reported in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state on Dec. 23. Discovery
of the disease halted some $3.8 billion in annual American beef exports.
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- The disease is believed to be spread through livestock
feed contaminated with the brain, spinal cord or nervous system tissue
of infected animals, which scientists call specified risk material or SRM.
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- The experts noted there was a "high probability"
that other infected cattle have been imported from Canada, and possibly
Europe. Their report gave no details.
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- The infected U.S. cow was imported from Alberta, Canada
in 2001. Canada reported its own first domestic case of mad cow disease
last May.
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- Panel chairman Urlich Kihm, who addressed a special meeting
of U.S. Agriculture Department officials, said the United States "could
have a case a month" of mad cow disease. Kihm said he based that estimate
on his own "logical thinking" and the experience of nations such
as Denmark and Italy.
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- However, he said the United States would not see the
kind of broad outbreak seen in Britain in the late 1980s. About 140 people,
most in Britain, have died of the human form of the illness.
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- The panel recommended several additional precautions
the U.S. government should take.
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- "All SRM must be excluded from all animal feed,
including pet food," Kihm said.
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- The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates livestock
feed, should eliminate all animal protein from cattle feed as another safeguard,
the panel said. "The prohibition of the use of all meat and bone meal
(MBM), including avian, in ruminant feed is justified partly due to the
issues of cross-contamination as well as the current problems in differentiating
mammalian and avian MBM," it said.
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- That means sheep and goats -- as well as cattle -- would
not be allowed to eat feed containing MBM.
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- Kihm was scheduled to give the recommendations to Veneman
later on Wednesday.
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- "We look forward to thoroughly reviewing the report
as well as any further recommendations from the Foreign Animal Disease
Advisory Committee," a USDA spokeswoman said.
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- One of the panel's goals was "removal of all SRM
from both human food and animal feed," according to documents released
at the USDA meeting. The USDA should consider banning brain and spinal
cord from all cattle over 12 months of age from human food, it said.
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- Another necessary step is for the United States to test
all "at risk" cattle over 30 months of age, the experts said.
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- Those would include animals that die on the farm or while
being transported to slaughter plants, sickly or crippled "downer"
animals, and cattle sent to "emergency slaughter," the panel
said. The government last month banned the use of downer cattle from the
human food supply.
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- The USDA plans to boost mad cow tests to about 40,000
cattle this year, double the number tested last year.
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- USDA officials said they will finish their investigation
of herdmates of the infected cow within the next two weeks, a plan that
the panel said it supported.
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- Other panel members include William Hueston, director
of the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota;
Dagmar Heim, chief of BSE control programs in the Swiss Federal Veterinary
Office; and Stuart MacDiarmid, a New Zealand mad cow expert.
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- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=4283303
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