WASHINGTON -- The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is soliciting public comment on regulatory actions the agency may propose, as officials consider implementing additional safeguards against human exposure to animal byproducts responsible for causing mad cow disease.
Among the possible actions listed in the FSIS "thinking paper" are bans on: the use of brain and spinal cord from specified cattle in human food; the use of central nervous system tissues in boneless beef products, including meat from advanced meat recovery systems; and the use of the vertebral column from certain categories of cattle, including downed animals, in the production of meat from AMR systems.
Also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the malady is believed to be the causative agent behind a fatal human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Neither BSE nor Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease has been detected in the United States, and a study of risk assessment by Harvard University's School of Public Health, released last month, concluded that preventative measures taken by federal agencies following the initial outbreaks of mad cow disease in Europe in the 1980s have proven extremely effective in preventing the introduction BSE in the United States.