MAD COW DISEASE

Mad cow disease targeted by new FDA rules Closing loopholes in protections against mad cow disease, the Food and Drug Administration today banned brains and other cattle parts that could carry the disease's infectious agent from use in cosmetics and dietary supplements. The action puts the agency's restrictions in line with those issued by the Agriculture Department to keep those cattle parts out of meat after the brain-wasting disease was found in December in a Holstein cow in Washington state. The ban affects products made from animals 30 months of age and older, the age in which the government has said the brain-wasting disease can be found. The restrictions prohibit the use of the brain and spinal cord, where the misshapen proteins blamed for mad cow disease are considered most likely to be found. The banned parts from the older animals also include skulls, eyes, and nervous system tissue close to the spinal cord. However, the use of tallow, a processed fat made from cattle, will still be allowed provided it carries less than .15 percent impurities, which could include proteins. Tallow is used in cosmetics, but FDA has said that the high heat and pressure used to make it should minimize any risk of having mad cow infectious agent in tallow....
Canada bans cattle brains, spines from feed Canada will keep cattle brains, spines and other materials that pose a risk of transmitting mad cow disease out of pig and poultry feed, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Friday. The strict new feed rules come more than a year after an expert panel recommended changes in the wake of the country's first home-grown case of mad cow disease, discovered last May. "We felt it was time to signal the direction we plan to go in order to allow us to move to a different stage of consultation and begin to really bear down on the details," said Billy Hewett, director of policy for the international affairs section of the CFIA, the federal food safety agency....
Western premiers say Ottawa must get tough with U.S. on mad cow Western premiers are calling on the federal government to be more aggressive about dealing with the U.S. government on the ongoing mad cow crisis. Live Canadian cattle have been banned from the U.S. and other international markets since a northern Alberta cow tested positive in May 2003 for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for mad cow disease. A recent Statistics Canada study says the U.S. ban on Canadian beef has made cattle-farming families poorer. The report found that the border closure sliced incomes by an average of one-third. Canada's largest cattle farms lost an average of $220,000 each, and a typical family farm lost about $20,000. Both Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert and Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said the federal government needs to come up with a plan in the eventuality the border remains closed for a long time....
Canada PM Comments Unfounded Canada still has shown no proof that it was U.S. feed that infected a cow last year with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease, FDA officials told DTN on Friday. The allegation was made by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in a speech Wednesday in Idaho. "When BSE, or mad cow, was discovered in a Canadian cow, some chose to ignore the fact that in all probability, the feed that gave it the disease came from the United States and consequently, the border was closed," he was quoted as saying. "This is the first time that we have heard the allegation," Linda Grassie of the FDA/Center for Veterinary Medicine stated in an email. Grassie was quick to point out neither the investigation conducted by the Canadian government nor the U.S. government indicated that feed or feed ingredients from the U.S. were implicated in the feeding of these animals....