FDA announces stricter regulations to protect consumers and livestock from exposure to BSE

Food & Drink Weekly, Feb 2, 2004

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week announced updated rules regarding animal feed and human food to strengthen the existing firewalls that protect Americans and cattle from exposure to the agent thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) intends to ban from human food (including dietary supplements), and cosmetics a wide range of bovine-derived material so that the same safeguards that protect Americans from exposure to the agent of BSE through meat products regulated by USDA also apply to food products that FDA regulates. FDA also will prohibit certain currently allowed feeding and manufacturing practices involving feed for cattle and other ruminant animals. These additional measures will further strengthen FDA's 1997 "animal feed" rule, FDA said.

To implement these new protections, FDA will publish two interim final rules that will take effect immediately upon publication, although there will be an opportunity for public comment after publication. The first interim final rule will ban the following materials from FDA-regulated human food (including dietary supplements) and cosmetics:

* Any material from "downer" cattle (animals that cannot walk). Meat from "downer" cattle will be prohibited from canned soups, pizzas, dietary supplements and cosmetics--products FDA regulates.

* Any material from "dead" cattle (cattle that die on the farm; i.e. before reaching the slaughter plant).

* Specified Risk Materials (SRMs) known to harbor the highest concentrations of the infectious agent for BSE, such as the brain, skull, eyes, and spinal cord of cattle 30 months or older, and a portion of the small intestine and tonsils from all cattle, regardless of their age or health; and

* The product known as mechanically separated beef, a product which may contain SRMs. Meat obtained by Advanced Meat Recovery (an automated system for cutting meat from bones) may be used since USDA regulations do not allow the presence of SRMs in this product.

The second interim final rule is designed to lower even further the risk that cattle will be purposefully or inadvertently fed prohibited protein and will implement four specific changes in FDA's present animal feed rule. Most importantly the rule will Eliminate the present exemption in the feed rule that allows mammalian blood and blood products to be fed to other ruminants as a protein source. Recent scientific evidence suggests that blood can carry some infectivity for BSE, FDA said.

Through partnerships with states, FDA also will receive data on 700 additional inspections, for a total of 3,800 state contract and partnership inspections in 2004 alone, including annual inspections of 100 percent of all known renderers and feed mills that process products containing materials prohibited in ruminant feed.