Subject: FSIS Publishes Final Rule Prohibiting Processing of "Downer" Cattle
Date: July 12, 2007 at 10:40 am PST
FSIS Publishes Final Rule Prohibiting Processing of "Downer" Cattle
Congressional and Public Affairs
(202) 720-9113
Steven Cohen
WASHINGTON, July 12, 2007 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety
and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced a permanent prohibition on the
slaughter of cattle that are unable to stand or walk ("downer" cattle) when
presented for pre-slaughter inspection. The inability to stand or walk can
be a clinical sign of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).
Under the rule, cattle that are injured after they pass pre-slaughter
inspection will be reevaluated to determine their eligibility for slaughter.
Veal calves that cannot stand because they are tired or cold may be set
apart and held for treatment and re-inspection.
The rule published in the July 13 Federal Register makes permanent what had
been an interim final rule prohibiting slaughter of non-ambulatory cattle in
the United States. The final rule becomes effective Oct. 1, 2007.
"This final rule further strengthens our public health controls at slaughter
plants across the United States," said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety
Dr. Richard Raymond. "Less than three weeks after the December 2003 BSE
detection in an imported cow, USDA moved quickly and decisively to put in
place interim rules that greatly reduced the risk of human exposure.
Experience has borne-out that these interim steps were correct and should be
made permanent."
On Jan. 12, 2004, FSIS issued a series of three interim final rules in
response to the first BSE diagnosis on Dec. 23, 2003. Those rules had
prohibited for human consumption non-ambulatory "downer" cattle and cattle
tissue identified as specified risk materials (SRMs); banned the use of high
pressure stunning devices that could drive SRM tissue into the meat; and
established requirements for Advanced Meat Recovery systems.
The rule requires that spinal cord must be removed from cattle 30 months of
age and older at the place of slaughter. It also mandates that records must
be maintained when beef products containing SRMs are moved from one
federally inspected establishment to another for further processing.
Countries that have received the internationally recognized BSE status of
"negligible risk" are not required to remove SRMs because their system
controls prevent the introduction and spread of BSE.
FSIS will conduct outreach sessions with industry to ensure that the
provisions of the final rule are fully understood by all affected
establishments.
Comments on the new information collection requirements must be received by
Sept. 11, 2007. For further information, contact: Dr. Daniel Engeljohn,
Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Policy, Program and Employee
Development, FSIS, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Avenue,
SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-3700, or by phone at (202) 205-0495.
#
Last Modified: July 12, 2007
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/news_&_events/ ... /index.asp
Docket
No. 04-047-l
No. 04-021ANPR
No. 2004N-0264
NEW BSE SAFEGUARDS
Federal Measures to Mitigate BSE Risks: Considerations for Further Action
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/updates/bseanprm.htm
Greetings FDA, USDA and APHIS et al,
https://web01.aphis.usda.gov/regpublic. ... cf000df08d
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/docket ... 000001.txt
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments ... 0011-1.pdf
From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. [[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 6:17 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS Prohibition of the Use of Specified
Risk Materials for Human Food and Requirements for the Disposition of
Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle
Greetings FSIS,
I would kindly like to submit the following to [Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS
Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk Materials for Human Food and
Requirements for the Disposition of Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle THE
BSE/TSE SUB CLINICAL Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle Broken bones and such
may be the first signs of a sub clinical BSE/TSE Non-Ambulatory Disabled
Cattle ; SUB CLINICAL PRION INFECTION MRC-43-00 Issued: Monday, 28 August
2000 NEW EVIDENCE OF SUB-CLINICAL PRION INFECTION: IMPORTANT RESEARCH
FINDINGS RELEVANT TO CJD AND BSE A team of researchers led by Professor John
Collinge at the Medical Research Council Prion Unit1 report today in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, on new evidence for the
existence of a ?sub-clinical? form of BSE in mice which was unknown until
now. The scientists took a closer look at what is known as the ?species
barrier? - the main protective factor which limits the ability of prions2 to
jump from one species to infect another. They found the mice had a
?sub-clinical? form of disease where they carried high levels of infectivity
but did not develop the clinical disease during their normal lifespan. The
idea that individuals can carry a disease and show no clinical symptoms is
not new. It is commonly seen in conventional infectious diseases.
Researchers tried to infect laboratory mice with hamster prions3 called
Sc237 and found that the mice showed no apparent signs of disease. However,
on closer inspection they found that the mice had high levels of mouse
prions in their brains. This was surprising because it has always been
assumed that hamster prions could not cause the disease in mice, even when
injected directly into the brain. In addition the researchers showed that
this new sub-clinical infection could be easily passed on when injected into
healthy mice and hamsters. The height of the species barrier varies widely
between different combinations of animals and also varies with the type or
strain of prions. While some barriers are quite small (for instance BSE
easily infects mice), other combinations of strain and species show a
seemingly impenetrable barrier. Traditionally, the particular barrier
studied here was assumed to be robust. Professor John Collinge said: "These
results have a number of important implications. They suggest that we should
re-think how we measure species barriers in the laboratory, and that we
should not assume that just because one species appears resistant to a
strain of prions they have been exposed to, that they do not silently carry
the infection. 9/13/2005
03-025IFA
03-025IFA-2
Terry S. Singeltary 2
Page 2 of 17
This research raises the possibility, which has been mentioned before, that
apparently healthy cattle could harbour, but never show signs of, BSE. "This
is a timely and unexpected result, increasing what we know about prion
disease. These new findings have important implications for those
researching prion disease, those responsible for preventing infected
material getting into the food chain and for those considering how best to
safeguard health and reduce the risk that theoretically, prion disease could
be contracted through medical and surgical procedures." ISSUED FRIDAY 25
AUGUST UNDER EMBARGO. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE EMBARGO IS SET BY THE JOURNAL.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT THE MRC PRESS OFFICE ON 020 7637 6011
(OFFICE HOURS) OR 07818 428297 OR 0385 774357 (OUT-OF-OFFICE-HOURS) OR
PROFESSOR JOHN COLLINGE ON 020 7594 3760. PLEASE NOTE THAT OWING TO TRAVEL
COMMITMENTS PROFESSOR COLLINGE WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE UNTIL 16.30 ON FRIDAY
25 AUGUST AND CONTACTABLE AGAIN ON MONDAY 28 AUGUST VIA THE MRC PRESS
OFFICE. DR ANDREW HILL (A CO-AUTHOR ON THE PAPER) FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF
PATHOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE WILL BE AVAILABLE ON 00 61 3 8344
3995 (DURING OFFICE HOURS) OR 00 61 3 9443 0009 (OUT-OF-OFFICE HOURS).
PLEASE NOTE THAT AUSTRALIA IS TEN HOURS AHEAD OF UK TIME. NOTES FOR EDITORS
Professor Collinge is a consultant neurologist and Director of the newly
formed MRC Prion Unit based at The Imperial College School of Medicine at St
Mary?s Hospital. He is also a member of the UK Government?s Spongiform
Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC). The MRC prion unit is was set up
in 1999, and its work includes molecular genetic studies of human prion
disease and transgenic modelling of human prion diseases. Prions are unique
infectious agents that cause fatal brain diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (CJD) in humans and scrapie and BSE (mad cow disease) in animals. In
some circumstances prions from one species of animals can infect another and
it is clear that BSE has done this to cause the disease variant CJD in the
UK and France. It remains unclear how large an epidemic of variant CJD will
occur over the years ahead. The strain of prion used here to infect the mice
is the Sc237 strain (also known as 263K) which infects hamsters, and until
now was assumed not to infect mice. This research was funded by the Medical
Research Council and Wellcome Trust. The Medical Research Council (MRC) is a
national organisation funded by the UK tax-payer. Its business is medical
research aimed at improving human health; everyone stands to benefit from
the outputs. The research it supports and the scientists it trains meet the
needs of the health services, the pharmaceutical and other health-related
industries and the academic world. MRC has funded work which has led to some
of the most significant discoveries and achievements in medicine in the UK.
About half of the MRC?s expenditure of £345 million is invested in over 50
of its Institutes and Units, where it employs its own research staff. The
remaining half goes in the form of grant support and training awards to
individuals and teams in universities and medical schools. The Wellcome
Trust is the world's largest medical research charity with a spend of some
£600 million in the current financial year 1999/2000. The Wellcome Trust
supports more than 5,000 researchers, at 400 locations, in 42 different
countries to promote and foster research with the aim of improving human and
animal health. As well as funding major initiatives in the public
understanding of science, the Wellcome Trust is the country's leading
supporter of research into the history of medicine.
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index/public_inter ... -43-00.htm
SNIP...FULL TEXT; 9/13/2005
Page 3 of 17
https://web01.aphis.usda.gov/regpublic. ... enDocument
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments ... 5IFA-2.pdf
Non-Ambulatory
Cattle and Calves
Released May 5, 2005, by the National Agricultural Statistics Service
(NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, U.S. Department
of Agriculture. For information on Non-ambulatory Cattle and Calves call
Mike Miller at 720-3040, office hours 7:30 a.m. to
4:30 p.m. ET.
Non-Ambulatory Cattle and Calves
Non-ambulatory cattle and calves in the United States totaled 465,000 head
during 2003 and
450,000 head during 2004. The number of non-ambulatory cattle 500 pounds or
greater totaled
280,000 head in 2003 and 270,000 head in 2004. The number of calves under
500 pounds reported
as non-ambulatory totaled 185,000 head in 2003 and 180,000 head in 2004.
The number of operations that reported non-ambulatory cattle and calves was
103,000 in 2003 and
81,000 in 2004. In 2003, there were 66,800 beef cow operations reporting
non-ambulatory cattle
and calves compared to 49,700 in 2004. There were 22,800 dairy operations
reporting nonambulatory
cattle and calves in 2003 compared to 23,000 in 2004.
This report is released as a cooperative effort between the National
Agricultural Statistics Service
and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service - Veterinary Services. Data
for this report were
collected on the January 1, 2004 and 2005 Cattle Surveys.
SNIP....
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports ... ccan05.pdf
Subject: COW SENSE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S BROKEN RECORD ON MAD COW
DISEASE
Date: May 2, 2006 at 6:50 pm PST
http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/me ... 00675.html
TSS
Date: July 12, 2007 at 10:40 am PST
FSIS Publishes Final Rule Prohibiting Processing of "Downer" Cattle
Congressional and Public Affairs
(202) 720-9113
Steven Cohen
WASHINGTON, July 12, 2007 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety
and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced a permanent prohibition on the
slaughter of cattle that are unable to stand or walk ("downer" cattle) when
presented for pre-slaughter inspection. The inability to stand or walk can
be a clinical sign of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).
Under the rule, cattle that are injured after they pass pre-slaughter
inspection will be reevaluated to determine their eligibility for slaughter.
Veal calves that cannot stand because they are tired or cold may be set
apart and held for treatment and re-inspection.
The rule published in the July 13 Federal Register makes permanent what had
been an interim final rule prohibiting slaughter of non-ambulatory cattle in
the United States. The final rule becomes effective Oct. 1, 2007.
"This final rule further strengthens our public health controls at slaughter
plants across the United States," said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety
Dr. Richard Raymond. "Less than three weeks after the December 2003 BSE
detection in an imported cow, USDA moved quickly and decisively to put in
place interim rules that greatly reduced the risk of human exposure.
Experience has borne-out that these interim steps were correct and should be
made permanent."
On Jan. 12, 2004, FSIS issued a series of three interim final rules in
response to the first BSE diagnosis on Dec. 23, 2003. Those rules had
prohibited for human consumption non-ambulatory "downer" cattle and cattle
tissue identified as specified risk materials (SRMs); banned the use of high
pressure stunning devices that could drive SRM tissue into the meat; and
established requirements for Advanced Meat Recovery systems.
The rule requires that spinal cord must be removed from cattle 30 months of
age and older at the place of slaughter. It also mandates that records must
be maintained when beef products containing SRMs are moved from one
federally inspected establishment to another for further processing.
Countries that have received the internationally recognized BSE status of
"negligible risk" are not required to remove SRMs because their system
controls prevent the introduction and spread of BSE.
FSIS will conduct outreach sessions with industry to ensure that the
provisions of the final rule are fully understood by all affected
establishments.
Comments on the new information collection requirements must be received by
Sept. 11, 2007. For further information, contact: Dr. Daniel Engeljohn,
Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Policy, Program and Employee
Development, FSIS, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Avenue,
SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-3700, or by phone at (202) 205-0495.
#
Last Modified: July 12, 2007
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/news_&_events/ ... /index.asp
Docket
No. 04-047-l
No. 04-021ANPR
No. 2004N-0264
NEW BSE SAFEGUARDS
Federal Measures to Mitigate BSE Risks: Considerations for Further Action
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/updates/bseanprm.htm
Greetings FDA, USDA and APHIS et al,
https://web01.aphis.usda.gov/regpublic. ... cf000df08d
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/docket ... 000001.txt
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments ... 0011-1.pdf
From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. [[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 6:17 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS Prohibition of the Use of Specified
Risk Materials for Human Food and Requirements for the Disposition of
Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle
Greetings FSIS,
I would kindly like to submit the following to [Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS
Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk Materials for Human Food and
Requirements for the Disposition of Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle THE
BSE/TSE SUB CLINICAL Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle Broken bones and such
may be the first signs of a sub clinical BSE/TSE Non-Ambulatory Disabled
Cattle ; SUB CLINICAL PRION INFECTION MRC-43-00 Issued: Monday, 28 August
2000 NEW EVIDENCE OF SUB-CLINICAL PRION INFECTION: IMPORTANT RESEARCH
FINDINGS RELEVANT TO CJD AND BSE A team of researchers led by Professor John
Collinge at the Medical Research Council Prion Unit1 report today in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, on new evidence for the
existence of a ?sub-clinical? form of BSE in mice which was unknown until
now. The scientists took a closer look at what is known as the ?species
barrier? - the main protective factor which limits the ability of prions2 to
jump from one species to infect another. They found the mice had a
?sub-clinical? form of disease where they carried high levels of infectivity
but did not develop the clinical disease during their normal lifespan. The
idea that individuals can carry a disease and show no clinical symptoms is
not new. It is commonly seen in conventional infectious diseases.
Researchers tried to infect laboratory mice with hamster prions3 called
Sc237 and found that the mice showed no apparent signs of disease. However,
on closer inspection they found that the mice had high levels of mouse
prions in their brains. This was surprising because it has always been
assumed that hamster prions could not cause the disease in mice, even when
injected directly into the brain. In addition the researchers showed that
this new sub-clinical infection could be easily passed on when injected into
healthy mice and hamsters. The height of the species barrier varies widely
between different combinations of animals and also varies with the type or
strain of prions. While some barriers are quite small (for instance BSE
easily infects mice), other combinations of strain and species show a
seemingly impenetrable barrier. Traditionally, the particular barrier
studied here was assumed to be robust. Professor John Collinge said: "These
results have a number of important implications. They suggest that we should
re-think how we measure species barriers in the laboratory, and that we
should not assume that just because one species appears resistant to a
strain of prions they have been exposed to, that they do not silently carry
the infection. 9/13/2005
03-025IFA
03-025IFA-2
Terry S. Singeltary 2
Page 2 of 17
This research raises the possibility, which has been mentioned before, that
apparently healthy cattle could harbour, but never show signs of, BSE. "This
is a timely and unexpected result, increasing what we know about prion
disease. These new findings have important implications for those
researching prion disease, those responsible for preventing infected
material getting into the food chain and for those considering how best to
safeguard health and reduce the risk that theoretically, prion disease could
be contracted through medical and surgical procedures." ISSUED FRIDAY 25
AUGUST UNDER EMBARGO. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE EMBARGO IS SET BY THE JOURNAL.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT THE MRC PRESS OFFICE ON 020 7637 6011
(OFFICE HOURS) OR 07818 428297 OR 0385 774357 (OUT-OF-OFFICE-HOURS) OR
PROFESSOR JOHN COLLINGE ON 020 7594 3760. PLEASE NOTE THAT OWING TO TRAVEL
COMMITMENTS PROFESSOR COLLINGE WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE UNTIL 16.30 ON FRIDAY
25 AUGUST AND CONTACTABLE AGAIN ON MONDAY 28 AUGUST VIA THE MRC PRESS
OFFICE. DR ANDREW HILL (A CO-AUTHOR ON THE PAPER) FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF
PATHOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE WILL BE AVAILABLE ON 00 61 3 8344
3995 (DURING OFFICE HOURS) OR 00 61 3 9443 0009 (OUT-OF-OFFICE HOURS).
PLEASE NOTE THAT AUSTRALIA IS TEN HOURS AHEAD OF UK TIME. NOTES FOR EDITORS
Professor Collinge is a consultant neurologist and Director of the newly
formed MRC Prion Unit based at The Imperial College School of Medicine at St
Mary?s Hospital. He is also a member of the UK Government?s Spongiform
Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC). The MRC prion unit is was set up
in 1999, and its work includes molecular genetic studies of human prion
disease and transgenic modelling of human prion diseases. Prions are unique
infectious agents that cause fatal brain diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (CJD) in humans and scrapie and BSE (mad cow disease) in animals. In
some circumstances prions from one species of animals can infect another and
it is clear that BSE has done this to cause the disease variant CJD in the
UK and France. It remains unclear how large an epidemic of variant CJD will
occur over the years ahead. The strain of prion used here to infect the mice
is the Sc237 strain (also known as 263K) which infects hamsters, and until
now was assumed not to infect mice. This research was funded by the Medical
Research Council and Wellcome Trust. The Medical Research Council (MRC) is a
national organisation funded by the UK tax-payer. Its business is medical
research aimed at improving human health; everyone stands to benefit from
the outputs. The research it supports and the scientists it trains meet the
needs of the health services, the pharmaceutical and other health-related
industries and the academic world. MRC has funded work which has led to some
of the most significant discoveries and achievements in medicine in the UK.
About half of the MRC?s expenditure of £345 million is invested in over 50
of its Institutes and Units, where it employs its own research staff. The
remaining half goes in the form of grant support and training awards to
individuals and teams in universities and medical schools. The Wellcome
Trust is the world's largest medical research charity with a spend of some
£600 million in the current financial year 1999/2000. The Wellcome Trust
supports more than 5,000 researchers, at 400 locations, in 42 different
countries to promote and foster research with the aim of improving human and
animal health. As well as funding major initiatives in the public
understanding of science, the Wellcome Trust is the country's leading
supporter of research into the history of medicine.
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index/public_inter ... -43-00.htm
SNIP...FULL TEXT; 9/13/2005
Page 3 of 17
https://web01.aphis.usda.gov/regpublic. ... enDocument
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments ... 5IFA-2.pdf
Non-Ambulatory
Cattle and Calves
Released May 5, 2005, by the National Agricultural Statistics Service
(NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, U.S. Department
of Agriculture. For information on Non-ambulatory Cattle and Calves call
Mike Miller at 720-3040, office hours 7:30 a.m. to
4:30 p.m. ET.
Non-Ambulatory Cattle and Calves
Non-ambulatory cattle and calves in the United States totaled 465,000 head
during 2003 and
450,000 head during 2004. The number of non-ambulatory cattle 500 pounds or
greater totaled
280,000 head in 2003 and 270,000 head in 2004. The number of calves under
500 pounds reported
as non-ambulatory totaled 185,000 head in 2003 and 180,000 head in 2004.
The number of operations that reported non-ambulatory cattle and calves was
103,000 in 2003 and
81,000 in 2004. In 2003, there were 66,800 beef cow operations reporting
non-ambulatory cattle
and calves compared to 49,700 in 2004. There were 22,800 dairy operations
reporting nonambulatory
cattle and calves in 2003 compared to 23,000 in 2004.
This report is released as a cooperative effort between the National
Agricultural Statistics Service
and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service - Veterinary Services. Data
for this report were
collected on the January 1, 2004 and 2005 Cattle Surveys.
SNIP....
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports ... ccan05.pdf
Subject: COW SENSE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S BROKEN RECORD ON MAD COW
DISEASE
Date: May 2, 2006 at 6:50 pm PST
http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/me ... 00675.html
TSS
