Experts say feed ban must be expanded
1:01 AM 6/08/03
Ron Seely Environment reporter

With mad cow disease now just across the U.S. border in Canada, critics of livestock feeding practices in states such as Wisconsin - where dairy and beef cattle are an agricultural mainstay - say more comprehensive U.S. bans on the use of animal products in feed may be in order.

Madison's John Stauber, co-author of a book called "Mad Cow U.S.A.," which predicted the appearance of the disease in North America, said that despite a partial federal feeding ban imposed in this country in 1997, it remains legal for livestock producers and dairy farmers to feed blood and fat from slaughtered cows to their animals.

Wisconsin agriculture officials, as well as feed mill operators, say the existing feed ban is adequate and that imposing a more strict prohibition would cost businesses, farmers, and eventually consumers, too much money.

"I think the rule is effective," said Eric Nelson, feed programs manager for the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

This is no small thing in Wisconsin, both because of the number of dairy and beef farms and because of the more than 600 mills that mix and sell feed. Nelson said the Department of Agriculture has inspected all of those mills at least once to make sure they are complying with the feed rules. He said compliance in Wisconsin is among the highest in the nation. He added that many mill owners simply don't carry feed with blood or fat from rendered cows because of the complexity of the regulations.

Some do, however. And critics say feed that contains blood from beef or dairy cattle could also contain the diseased proteins that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, the brain-wasting illness also known as mad cow disease. At issue is the potential spread of a fatal human disease called Creutzfeld Jakob Disease, or CJD, which humans can get by eating meat from animals infected with mad cow. About 130 people in Europe have died from the brain disease since mad cow first appeared in England in 1986.

The recent appearance of mad cow disease in Alberta, Canada - so far in only one cow that experts believe ate contaminated feed - is the first occurrence of the disease in North America. No cases have turned up in the United States, but agriculture officials have tracked several cows from the infected Canadian herd to a ranch in Montana.

Although there have been no cases of CJD caused by mad cow on this continent, Stauber and other critics of the U.S. response say officials are not reacting aggressively enough and should replace the partial ban on feeding cow parts with a total ban, such as that in place in Europe.

Also, Stauber argues, testing in the U.S. should be dramatically increased. In Europe every animal slaughtered for human consumption is tested for mad cow while the U.S. does only spot testing for the disease.

Marcus Doherr, of the University of Bern in Switzerland and a leading expert on mad cow epidemiology, has been quoted as saying that it is almost a certainty there are other undetected cases of the disease in Canada and possibly the United States. The only way to detect the disease is to test the brain tissue of slaughtered cows.

"There must be more cases," Doherr said. "For every case we detect, we estimate there were three to five animals exposed."

Stauber said it's probably only a matter of time before the disease spreads on this continent, just as it did in Europe, especially because of free trade pacts between the U.S. and Canada. The import of cows from Canada has been halted, but officials are talking about partially lifting the restrictions. The U.S. imports 1.7 million head of cattle a year from Canada. Last year, Alberta, the province where the disease was discovered, exported $30.2 million worth of cattle to Wisconsin and another $15.8 million in cattle carcasses and meat.

"This is our North American outbreak," Stauber said. "And the thing is, it is not as if Canada were as far away as New Zealand or something."

Al Schultz, a vice president with Vita Plus feeds in Madison, said the existing regulations are enough.

"I think the regulations as they have been put forward are workable and fair," Schultz said. "They give us the fire wall we need. To go further would be difficult. It would definitely raise the cost of the product."

John Petty, executive director of Wisconsin Agri-Service Associates, a trade organization that represents grain, feed and farm supply dealers, said it was common practice for years before the ban for beef and dairy farmers to use feed that contains rendered cow parts, such as meat and bone meal. Rendered animals parts are also commonly used in feed for other animals, such as pigs and chickens, and also in dog and cat food.

Blood meal from cows is used, largely by dairy farmers, because it contains high levels of protein, an important nutrient that has allowed farmers to boost the milk production of their cows, Petty said.

In 1997, after long debate, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibited the use of certain proteins derived from cows in feed. Those banned materials include meat, glandular meal, meat and bone meal, meat by-products, hydrolyzed hair, cooked or steamed bone meal, bone marrow and leather meal.

The banned substances were selected because they are from the parts of cows most likely to contain the deformed proteins, called prions, that cause mad cow disease. The prions accumulate in the brain and cause sponge-like holes, thus the scientific name for the disease - bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Nelson, with the state agriculture department, said blood was not included among the banned substances because research has shown the mad cow prions are found in brain or spinal cord tissue and not in blood.

But some studies have turned up prions in blood, according to reviews of scientific literature. Michael Greger, a physician who works with the Organic Consumers Association, reported in an article for that organization that surveys turned up 15 published studies showing prion transmission through blood.

Even one of the world's foremost authorities on prions questions the practice of using blood meal in livestock feed. Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the prion, said during an interview with a San Francisco radio station that no feed should contain any rendered parts from cows, including blood.

"I think that we shouldn't be using anything from ruminants in cattle feed," Prusiner said. "I think that's clear."

Stauber and others point to at least two more loopholes in the U.S. feeding ban. Stauber said the mad cow feeding regulations do not prohibit using feed with rendered cow parts for other farm animals, such as chicken and pigs. And the regulations also allow rendered parts from chicken and pigs to be fed back to beef and dairy cows.

Nor, Stauber added, do U.S. laws prohibit feeding pigs and chickens rendered parts from deer or elk - even from animals that have tested positive for chronic wasting disease, the deer version of mad cow.
indentThe lack of a ban on such practices violates recommendations from the World Health Organization on mad cow feeding practices, according to Stauber.
indentNelson, with the state agriculture department and Petty, the director of Wisconsin Agri-Service Associates, said they trust the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which cites research that shows that the BSE prions rarely cross from species to species.
indentStill, in the weeks since the discovery of the diseased Canada cow, the United States has been under pressure to take a harder look at its mad cow regulations, both the feeding ban and testing. On Thursday, for example, Japan's agriculture minister asked the U.S. to do more to protect its meat supply by doing more testing and by toughening feed bans. Such a request carries real power because Japan bought $842 million of American beef last year and accounts for 32 percent of the total value of U.S. beef exports.
indentNelson said the FDA has responded to such pressure by announcing that it will re-examine its regulations, especially the exemption for blood meal. And Petty said those in the feed industry wouldn't be surprised if those regulations are tightened in coming months.
indent"Obviously, with this being found in North America, the FDA is going to put everything back on the table," Petty said.
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