USDA puts ban on downed animals as source of meat

WASHINGTON -- The Agriculture Department significantly upgraded the country's defenses against mad cow disease Tuesday, banning meat from cows that can't walk or stand on their own and promising to speed up creation of a nationwide animal tracking system.

The changes, supported by consumer advocates, also were intended to boost confidence in the U.S. beef supply at home and abroad, where more than 30 countries have banned American beef products.

These are "very aggressive actions," Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Tuesday, one week after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease surfaced in a Washington state Holstein slaughtered Dec. 9.

The changes will include more rapid testing of cattle at higher risk of mad cow disease because of age or the presence of neurological problems. Their meat will not be processed until test results are back.

Veneman also said small intestines from cows will no longer be allowed into the U.S. food supply. Nor will head and spinal tissue from cattle older than 30 months -- an age chosen because the disease generally has an incubation period of at least three years, officials said. In addition, the Bush administration is ordering changes in slaughterhouse techniques to prevent meat from being accidentally contaminated with brain or spinal cord tissue that can spread mad cow disease.

"Sound science continues to be our guide," Veneman said.

The Food and Drug Administration, however, said that for the time being it would not prohibit the use of the high-risk cattle products in pet foods and feed for chickens and pigs, saying there is no scientific evidence to support such a ban. There has been a ban on using cattle products in feed for cattle, sheep and goats since August 1997.

Many of the changes were implemented by Canada last May, when a single case of mad cow surfaced in Alberta. USDA had been considering some of the measures prior to the Washington state case, but a coalition of congressional Republicans and farm state Democrats blocked Congress from including the ban on meat from downed animals in a $373 billion catchall spending bill that has passed the House and awaits a vote in the Senate.

"We felt good about the system we had in place," said Dr. Ron DeHaven, USDA's chief veterinarian.

Under the new U.S. regulations, the sick cow slaughtered in Washington state earlier this month would not have been allowed to enter the food chain. The cow was sent to meatpacking plants almost two weeks before test results showed it had bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

The meat from that cow was allowed to be sold for human consumption after its brain and spinal column were removed and a federal inspector saw no indication of neurological disease. Veneman estimated 150,000 to 200,000 downed animals are among the more than 35 million cattle that are sent to slaughter each year.

USDA ordered a recall of more than 10,000 pounds of meat from 20 cows slaughtered with the Holstein on Dec. 9. The recalled meat was distributed to eight states and Guam, although officials said 80 percent of it went to Oregon and Washington.

Agriculture officials have said they ordered the recall as a precaution, insisting there was no threat to the safety of the U.S. food supply. "The risk of BSE spreading in the U.S. is extremely low and any possible spread would have been reversed by the controls we have already put in place," Veneman said.

DeHaven said authorities have determined that some of the cows already in quarantine in Washington are among the 81 Canadian-born cows from the same herd as the sick Holstein. Records indicate that herd entered the United States in late 2001. The search continues for cattle that might have eaten contaminated feed, the most likely source of infection.

The other new measures include:

--Prohibiting air-injection stunning of cattle, a pre-slaughter practice that can spread brain tissue to other parts of the carcass.

--Stricter controls on automated carcass-stripping systems to better insure that spinal cord tissue isn't nicked.

--Speeding creation of a national electronic animal identification system that would enable officials to respond faster to an outbreak of mad cow or other animal-borne illnesses. The cost of such a system is estimated to exceed $500 million in its first six years.

Veneman said the announced changes have been planned for a while. But they were announced just after U.S. agriculture officials went to Japan and South Korea to ask that bans on U.S. beef be lifted.

"These actions are not being taken in response just to our trading partners," Veneman said. "We should take these actions that are appropriate and consistent with actions that many other countries have taken."

She said USDA's actions should not impose any hardship on the dairy, cattle and meatpacking industries, or on consumers. "I don't expect an increase in the price to consumers," she said. "The number of cattle that enter the food supply currently as downer animals is very small."

Dan Murphy, spokesman for the American Meat Institute, the meatpackers' trade association, said his group supported the measures, although he called them "aggressive and extraordinary compared to international standards."

Terry Stokes, chief executive officer of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said his group also agreed with USDA's actions. "As USDA reiterated, the beef supply is safe, and these steps taken today are being done out of an abundance of caution," he said.

Veneman acknowledged that preventing downed animals from going to slaughter would force USDA to alter its mad cow detection system, including the possibility of testing animals on the farm. A major objection from the dairy cow industry and some lawmakers was that sick animals would simply be buried on the farm and would elude detection.

Animal rights and consumer groups were generous in their praise of the USDA announcement.

"This will go a long way toward assuring consumers and animal welfare advocates that the modern livestock production system is being properly regulated," said Wayne Pacelle, vice president of the Humane Society of the United States.

Democratic presidential candidates have seized on the mad cow emergency to criticize the Bush administration for policies they said have left the nation more vulnerable to such problems.

Howard Dean said the administration shouldn't have objected to efforts in Congress to ban the slaughter of downed animals for meat and shouldn't have resisted efforts to improve the system of tracking cattle. Dick Gephardt criticized the White House for siding with meatpackers against country-of-origin meat labeling, as required under the 2002 farm bill, and for ignoring the need for more federal money to inspect agricultural imports.