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12/31/03
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1. Mad Cow Discovered in U.S.
2. USDA Used Regs Meat Industry Had Opposed
3. Congress Failed To Act
4. The Power Of Recall
5. Factory Farming and Its Discontents
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1. MAD COW DISEASE DISCOVERED
IN U.S.
The USDA confirmed on December 23
that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad
cow disease, had been detected in a single cow from Washington
state.
BSE is a fatal degenerative
disease caused by abnormal proteins called prions. It was first
discovered in Britain in 1986 and is linked to variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
The infected animal was a
nonambulatory ("downer") Holstein dairy cow
slaughtered on December 9. Meat from the animal and others
slaughtered at the same facility reached eight western U.S
states and Guam, and much may have been eaten by the December 23
announcement and an accompanying recall of over 10,000 pounds of
beef.
The infected cow has since been
determined to have been born before the 1997 ban on feeding
cattle parts directly to cattle, and may have been born in
Canada. However the exact date and manner of infection has not
been determined, and it is not yet known whether this case is
linked to the incident of BSE in Alberta last May. Read
more.
2. USDA ISSUES REGS THAT MEAT
INDUSTRY HAD OPPOSED
In response to the discovery of a
BSE-infected cow in the United States, Agriculture Secretary Ann
Veneman announced Tuesday a series of new regulations intended
to protect public health. The regulations include an immediate
ban on all "downer" cattle, which will keep about
190,000 sick or injured cattle out of the food supply each year.
The new measures also mandate that carcasses tested for BSE will
not be released into the food supply until test results come
back negative. The new rules will also tighten slaughterhouse
regulations to keep brain and spinal tissue out of the meat,
such as prohibiting the use of air-injection stunning and
prohibiting mechanically separated meat in human food.
According to the Washington
Post, the ban on downer cattle "marked a policy
turnabout for the Bush administration, coming only a few weeks
after the department and allies in the powerful meat lobby
blocked an identical measure" from being included in the
2004 Agriculture appropriations bill. The USDA
had for years been advised to prohibit downed animals from being
marketed as food in the United States but the agency officially
declined to do so in 1999. The USDA was fighting a lawsuit over
this decision when news of a BSE-infected cow in the United
States broke.
3. CONGRESS FAILED TO ACT
The USDA’s action came in the
wake of close but unsuccessful efforts to ban the slaughter of
"downed" animals on Capitol Hill. Leading
Congressional proponents of the Downed Animal Protection Act
included Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Representatives Gary
Ackerman (D-5th/NY), Steven LaTourette (R-14th/OH), Marcy Kaptur
(D-9th/OH), and Earl Blumenaur (D-3rd/OR). On November 5, 2003,
the Senate amended its agriculture appropriations bill to
include the act but the House’s amendment narrowly failed in a
202-199 vote.
The Senate’s downed animal
provisions were stripped out in the conference committee on
December 9, 2003. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob
Goodlatte (R-6th/VA) and Representative Charles Stenholm
(D-17th/TX) opposed the downed animal provisions. During
consideration of the Farm Bill, both the House and the Senate
passed amendments to include the Downed Animal Protection Act in
the bill but these provisions were stripped by the Conference
Committee.
4. THE POWER OF RECALL
The December 23 press release of
the Food
Safety and Inspection Service announcing the recall of beef
due to the discovery of BSE in an American cow reads "Verns
Moses Lake Meats, a Moses Lake, Wash., establishment, is
voluntarily recalling approximately 10,410 pounds of raw beef
that may have been exposed to tissues containing the infectious
agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)."
Read through any of the items on
the FSIS’s recall website and you will find a consistent
pattern: a company name and the phrase "voluntarily
recalling." While agencies like the Consumer Products
Safety Commission and the FDA can mandate recalls of consumer
products, foods and drugs if the company fails to do so
voluntarily, the USDA has no such power over meat recalls. Last
May, Representative Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced H.R. 2273, the
"Unsafe Meat and Poultry Recall Act" to give the USDA
the power to demand a meat recall if a company fails to do so
voluntarily. The bill is currently languishing in the House
Agriculture Committee. Learn
more.
5. FACTORY FARMING AND ITS
DISCONTENTS
While last week's discovery of
BSE in the U.S. may well prove to be an isolated incident, factory
farm opponents have long argued that widespread methods of
raising and slaughtering cattle carry a risk of spreading the
deadly prion. For instance, the 1997 ruminant feed regulations
permitted ruminant bone meal to be fed to poultry, and poultry
litter, which can contain uneaten feed, to be fed back to
ruminants. The GRACE Factory Farm Project is a comprehensive
resource on the social, environmental and human health
consequences of factory farming. And for consumers looking for
alternatives to factory farm meat, the Eat
Well Guide offers a directory of producers, markets and
restaurants, searchable by product type, third-party
certification, and producer-described production methods.
Cultivating a vision where
rural and urban communities join together
to ensure abundant family farms, healthy critters, clean water and
a wild Earth.
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Rural Updates!
Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org
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