CFBF hails strengthening of BSE safeguards by Veneman

By Christine Souza

California Farm Bureau Federation and other agricultural groups have expressed support for additional measures taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect against the cattle disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE.

"We strongly support the actions announced by Secretary Veneman," said California Farm Bureau Federation President Bill Pauli. "The actions reinforce an already significant commitment to providing consumers with safe and plentiful food."

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said last week that USDA will ban non-ambulatory "downer" cattle from the food supply, require new procedures at meatpacking plants and take other immediate steps providing further protection for public health.

Pauli said the measures enhance actions taken since at least 1997 to prevent BSE from reaching American beef.

"American beef was safe yesterday and its safety is further assured today," Pauli said. "The secretary has employed the best available science to provide additional safeguards for consumers. Those safeguards will benefit farmers and ranchers as well."

California Cattlemen's Association also praised the protective action.

The California Cattlemen's Association strongly supports the immediate implementation of additional safeguards announced by Secretary Veneman against the introduction and spread of BSE," said Ben Higgins, California Cattlemen's Association executive vice president. "The policies will further strengthen protections against BSE by removing certain animals and specified risk material and tissues from the human food chain; requiring additional cattle process controls for establishments using advanced meat recovery; and holding meat from cattle that have been tested for BSE until the test has been confirmed negative."

One week after a single dairy cow in Washington state was diagnosed with BSE, Veneman put into motion additional measures intended to bolster U.S. protection systems against the disease and further protect public health.

Policies announced by Veneman have been under consideration for many months, especially since the finding of a case of BSE in Canada in May 2003.

"For more than a decade, the United States has had in place an aggressive surveillance, detection and response program for BSE," Veneman said. "While we are confident that the United States has safeguards and firewalls needed to protect public health, these additional actions will further strengthen our protection systems."

Effectively immediately, USDA has banned all downer cattle from the human food supply.

"I support the ban on disabled cattle from entering the human food chain. This is a very positive step," said University of California, Davis, veterinarian John Maas, who specializes in beef cattle. "Past efforts by USDA to ensure these disabled animals are safe for human consumption cost too much in terms of agency resources. I strongly urge USDA to implement a system in which disabled cattle are humanely handled and tested for BSE as well as other diseases as part of their surveillance system."

As another safety precaution, meat from cattle that has been tested for BSE will be held until confirmation is received that the animals have, in fact, tested negative for the disease. This new policy will be in the form of an interpretive rule published in the Federal Register.

USDA will further enhance regulations by prohibiting the use of specified risk materials in the human food supply. These are 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. This will be effective immediately upon publication in the Federal Register. In addition, federally-inspected establishments that slaughter cattle will be required 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. Plants must also make that information readily available to inspectors.

Establishments using advanced meat recovery, industrial technology that removes muscle tissue from the bone of beef carcasses under high pressure without incorporating bone material, are required to implement additional controls. The regulation has been expanded to include the removal of dorsal root ganglia, clusters of nerve cells connected to the spinal cord, in addition to the spinal cord tissue.

The air-injection stunning of cattle will be prohibited, to ensure that portions of the brain are not dislocated into the tissues of the carcass as a consequence of humanely stunning cattle during the slaughter process. USDA has also prohibited the use of mechanically separated meat in human food.

To aid in the tracking of animals, Veneman announced that USDA will immediately implement a verifiable national animal identification system. While many cattle in the United States can be identified through a variety of systems, the development of a national system will enhance the speed and accuracy of U.S. response to disease outbreaks across many different animal species, she said.

"Even before last week, ranchers were talking about the idea of a national tracking program. It is something that just has to happen because consumers are going to demand knowing who raised the animal and where it comes from," said Loyalton rancher Rick Roberti, Plumas-Sierra County Farm Bureau director and vice president of the Plumas-Sierra County Cattlemen's Association. "We are going to need a tag or a chip or something, but the problem with tags is they often get lost at the slaughterhouses. Such a program would be pretty expensive, but we are at the point right now where it just has to happen."

Although the industry is in agreement that a U.S. animal identification plan is needed, beef veterinarian Maas said there are a few challenges in developing the program, such as determining who will fund, maintain and manage the program.

"Certainly the producers should pay for part of it, but they shouldn't necessarily have to pay the full cost," Maas said. "While cattle producers benefit, the general population also benefits greatly in terms of public health and the assurance of safe, inexpensive food."

Another concern, Maas said, is the management of the database that holds the animal identification and transfer of ownership information. Ranchers, he said, are worried about who has access to the information.

"What about the issue of liability?" Maas said. "Say I put a tag in my calf and sell it to somebody who sells it to the auction yard, who sells it. Say the calf gets out on the road 500 miles from my place. If somebody runs into it and wrecks their car and has serious physical injuries, the only person they could trace the animal back to would be me and it wasn't my fault."

Veneman announced that she will appoint an international panel of scientific experts to provide an objective review of USDA's response actions and identify areas for additional enhancements. For more than a decade, the United States has had in place an aggressive surveillance, detection and response program for BSE. The U.S. has tested more than 20,000 head of cattle for BSE in each of the past two years, 47 times the recommended international standard.

"I'm not saying that the strengthening of these safeguards is a bad idea, but if we implement all of these new things it is going to be a burden on the domestic producers," said Kenny Watkins of Linden, California Farm Bureau beef commodity advisory committee chairman. "The people that import to us should be held to the same standards."

California ranchers marketed more than 2.3 billion pounds of beef in 2002, earning cash receipts of nearly $1.3 billion. That made beef cattle the state's No. 4 commodity in terms of value, behind milk, grapes and nursery products. California ranks 7th in the nation in beef production.