040161 Tighter U.S. Beef Regulations Still Too Lax?

USA TODAY - After insisting for years that blood from cattle is safe to feed young calves as a substitute for cow milk, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suddenly reversed itself this week. It banned the practice as part of a series of new rules meant to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, which cattle can get from eating infected beef products.

That was not the FDA's only turnaround from long-held food-safety policies. It also banned restaurant scraps and chicken coop waste as protein supplements in cattle feed. The move will end the possibility of feed contamination from infected beef left on tables or in chicken feed.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says the tighter rules show that the federal government won't take any chances with the public's health following the discovery of a Holstein infected with mad cow in Washington state this past December.

He's partially right. The FDA's belated actions close some of the most glaring loopholes in beef regulation.

But a broader commitment still is needed to restore global confidence in the safety of the $38 billion U.S. cattle industry.

Since the detection of the infected Washington cow, cattle prices have fallen 10% at home, and as many as 50 countries have banned U.S. beef imports, threatening $3 billion in annual sales.

The FDA's halfway measures fail to provide U.S. consumers with complete peace of mind. And by falling short of standards in place around the world, they give export markets the excuse they need to continue their bans. The new rules overlook two critical ways mad cow disease still can spread:

By feeding cattle parts to other animals. The U.S. government has banned putting beef parts in cattle feed. But it still allows beef carcasses in pig and chicken feed as a protein supplement. The feed industry favors that policy because beef remnants are cheaper protein sources than soybeans and other supplements. And the industry says that even if cattle parts were tainted, the chance infecting these species with mad cow is remote. That reasoning didn't stop the European Union from barring all animal parts from all feed. The stricter rule prevents ranchers and feedlots from illegally using pig and chicken feed that contains beef parts as a food source for cattle.

By feeding other animal parts to cattle. Currently, the FDA allows cattle to be fed remnants of animals that include pigs, chickens, cats, dogs and rodents. Its rationale: Experience shows mad cow is spread only when cattle eat beef parts. But laboratory studies suggest these animals may silently carry mad cow. A 2002 National Institutes of Health study, for instance, showed that mice injected with the disease transmitted it when ground up into feed, even though they showed no signs of illness themselves.

Beyond the remaining gaps in FDA regulations, the U.S. still lacks an aggressive testing program for mad cow. It tests only two to three cattle per 10,000 annually. Japan, by contrast, tests all cattle at slaughter.

The cattle and feed industries argue that closing the remaining loopholes is too expensive in view of the extremely low threat to public health. Because no one has contracted the human variant of mad cow from the U.S. beef supply, they say the current safeguards are adequate.

While the risks to humans may be low, so is international confidence in the safety of the U.S. beef supply. Ignoring that perception is far more costly than paying the price of a total program for beef safety.

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