FDA Announces Feed Ban Extensions

October 7, 2005

    October 7, 2005 -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced new measures to help further protect consumers against the agent thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The agency is proposing to amend its animal feed regulations to prohibit from use in the food or feed of all animals certain high risk cattle materials that can potentially carry the BSE-infectious agent. All of the proposed prohibitions, except for those related to tallow, have already applied to cattle feed since 1997.
    "These additional measures that we proposed today will make an already small risk even smaller by further strengthening the effective measures already in place to protect American consumers from BSE," said Acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D.
    These high risk cattle materials prohibited in the proposed rule posted in the Thursday Federal Register include:

the brains and spinal cords from cattle 30 months of age and older;
the brains and spinal cords from cattle of any age not inspected and passed for human consumption;
the entire carcass of cattle not inspected and passed for human consumption if the brains and spinal cords have not been removed;
tallow that is derived from the materials prohibited by this proposed rule if the tallow contains more than 0.15 percent insoluble impurities; and
mechanically separated beef that is derived from the materials prohibited by this proposed rule.

    Today's proposed regulation builds on a series of firewalls that include FDA's 1997 feed regulation which prohibits the use of certain mammalian-origin proteins in ruminant feed (e.g. for cattle and sheep), but allows these materials to be used in feed for non-ruminant species.
    The removal of high-risk materials from all animal feed -- including pet food -- will protect against the transmission of the agent of BSE that could occur either through cross-contamination of ruminant feed with non-ruminant feed or feed ingredients during feed manufacture and transport, or intentional or unintentional misfeeding of non-ruminant feed to ruminants on the farm.
    Comments on the information collection provisions must be submitted by Nov. 7, 2005 with all other comments due by Dec. 20, 2005.
    To read the full Federal Register posting, go to:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/05-20196.htm.
Staff contact: Paul Rodgers, 303-771-3500

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