USDA Announces Additional Protection Measures Related to U.S. BSE (Mad Cow) Case

(On December 27, 2003, the USDA announced that the BSE world reference lab in Weybridge, England had confirmed the preliminary diagnosis of BSE in a single nonambulatory dairy cow that had been slaughtered on December 9, 2003 in Washington State, with all potential high-risk material (central nervous system tissue) diverted out of the human food supply and into rendering. (See ITT's Online Archives or 12/30/03 news, 03123010, for BP summary of this case with a list of countries currently banning U.S. beef.)

Downer Cattle Banned from Human Food Chain, Other Restrictions to be Put in Place

The measures that the USDA states it will take in order to bolster U.S. protection systems against BSE and further protect public health are:

Downer Animals Banned from Human Food Chain. Effective immediately, the USDA states that it will ban all downer cattle from the human food chain and will continue its BSE surveillance program.

Certain Products Will Be Held Until Testing Negative for BSE. The USDA will publish an interpretive rule in the Federal Register stating that Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspectors will no longer mark cattle tested for BSE as "inspected and passed" until confirmation is received that the animals have in fact tested negative for BSE.

Additional Body Parts to be Designated as Specified Risk Material. Effective immediately upon publication in the Federal Register, USDA will enhance its regulations by declaring as specified risk materials the following: skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia, eyes, vertebral column, spinal cord, and dorsal root ganglia of cattle over 30 months of age and the small intestine of cattle of all ages, thus prohibiting their use in the human food supply. USDA notes that tonsils from all cattle are already considered inedible and therefore do not enter the food supply.

USDA states that in an interim final rule, FSIS will require federally inspected establishments that slaughter cattle to develop, implement, and maintain procedures to remove, segregate, and dispose of these specified risk materials so that they cannot possibly enter the food chain. In addition, plants must also make that information readily available for review by FSIS inspection personnel. FSIS has also developed procedures for verifying the approximate age of cattle that are slaughtered in official establishments. USDA adds that state inspected plants must have equivalent procedures in place.

Restrictions to be Placed on Advanced Meat Recovery. The USDA explains that Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR) is an industrial technology that removes muscle tissue from the bone of beef carcasses under high pressure without incorporating bone material when operated properly. AMR product can be labeled as "meat." The USDA states that FSIS has previously had regulations that prohibit spinal cord from being included in the products labeled as "meat."

According to USDA, a new interim final rule, effective upon publication in the Federal Register, will expand that prohibition to include dorsal root ganglia, clusters of nerve cells connected to the spinal cord along the vertebrae column, in addition to spinal cord tissue. USDA states that like spinal cord, the dorsal root ganglia may also contain BSE infectivity if the animal is infected. In addition, because the vertebral column and skull in cattle 30 months and older will be considered inedible, it cannot be used for AMR.

The news release explains that in March 2003, FSIS began a routine regulatory sampling program for beef produced from AMR systems to ensure that spinal cord tissue is not present in this product. The new interim final rule will state that establishments have to ensure process control through verification testing to ensure that neither spinal cord nor dorsal root ganglia is present in the product.

Air-Injection Stunning to be Banned. The USDA states that to ensure that portions of the brain are not dislocated into the tissues of the carcass as a consequence of stunning cattle during the slaughter process, FSIS is issuing a regulation to ban the practice of air-injection stunning.

Mechanically Separated Meat to be Banned from Human Food. The USDA states that it will prohibit the use of mechanically separated meat in human food.

USDA Will Likely Issue Five Rulemakings for Newly Announced Measures

USDA sources state that FSIS is expected to issue five rulemakings on the above-described measures as one package in the Federal Register. These sources stated that the USDA has not yet set a date for publication of these rulemakings in the Federal Register; however, publication is expected sometime in the near future.

USDA sources also state that with the exception of the measure banning downer cattle from the food supply (which is effective immediately), the other measures are expected to only become effective when published as rulemakings in the Federal Register. These sources add that because these rulemakings are expected to be published soon, affected parties are being notified of the need to comply.

USDA contact - Alisa Harrison (202) 720-4623

USDA news release (Release No. 0449.03, dated 12/30/03) available at http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/12/0449.htm

USDA BSE-case chronology available at http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/12/bsechronology.htm

USDA update on BSE-case (Release No.0452.03, dated 12/30/03) available at http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/12/0452.htm