Health
Additional BSE safeguards planned
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Feb. 16, 2004
The Food and Drug Administration plans to add steps to better protect the U.S. food supply from the prions believed to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
The new safeguards are conveyed in two interim final rules that ban from human food a range of bovine-derived material and prohibit certain practices involving cattle feed.
The rules specifically prohibit the inclusion of any material from animals too sick to walk and material from cattle that die before reaching the slaughterhouse.
The rules also ban the use of mammalian blood and blood products in feed intended for other ruminants.
The FDA plans to step up its inspections of feed mills and renderers and to develop better BSE science that will achieve protection at lower cost. For example, the agency intends to enhance the ability of the public health system to detect prohibited materials in animal feed by developing diagnostic tests that identify these materials.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/02/16/hlbf0216.htm.
