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New BSE Feed Rule May Create 2.1 Billion Pounds Of Cattle Waste
Oct. 15, 2004

The new rule the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now writing to ban some bovine material - parts believed to be a higher risk for bovine spongiform encephalopathy infection - from all livestock feed may force industry to destroy as much as 2.1 billion pounds now being commercialized each year.

This, FDA veterinarian Burt Pritchett said, would be a worst-case scenario for the rendering, livestock and feed industries that would absorb most of the cost associated with the new feedban rule.

The FDA has said the reason behind the proposed expansion in the feedban is to "control the risks associated with cross contamination throughout feed manufacture," keeping cattle from being accidentally given feed for other livestock that may contain bovine material, such as brains, spinal cords and tonsils, considered to be a risk for spreading the disease.

Pritchett said the estimate that 2.1 billion pounds of bovine material would be diverted from commerce to "special disposal" is based on the assumption that the FDA decides the list of specified risk material prohibited in animal feed will be the same as the list now prohibited in human food by the USDA, something that has not yet been settled on by the FDA.

In January, the USDA expanded the list of specified risk material from cattle that are prohibited from the human food supply as well as banned beef from non-ambulatory and dead animals.

Included in Pritchett's estimate is about 800 million pounds of specified risk material collected from 28.2 million head of cattle under 30 months old, 600 million pounds from older cattle and 700 million pounds from dead stock or non-ambulatory cattle, or animals too sick or injured to stand.

All of this bovine material - now being used in feed products - would go into "special disposal," Pritchett said. That could mean landfills, incineration or possibly the production of biofuel.

The USDA said in May it wants to use up to $50 million in government loan guarantees to help efforts to turn banned bovine material into energy.

James Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation, said that the meat processing and feed industries are still hoping the FDA will look for other options to banning specified risk material from all animal feed and should at least wait for the USDA to complete the 18-month surveillance program in started in June to assess the prevalence of BSE in the U.S.

So far the USDA has tested about 80,000 cattle under the initiative with a final goal of testing 268,500 and has found no new cases.

"You ought to not precipitously take these actions until you understand what our current BSE situation is in the United States," Hodges said. "The positive we had in Washington state was of Canadian origin."

Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association, criticized the 2.1-billion-pound FDA estimate as conservative. "That's a very low-ball figure." And it won't just be the rendering industry that's hurt by the new feedban, he said.

Renderers take dead stock off ranchers' hands for only a small fee, Cook said. But if, under a new FDA rule, renderers have no use for those dead animals, that service will no longer be there and ranchers would have to bear the full costs of disposal.

The FDA has banned bovine material from cattle feed since 1997 because it is believed BSE, also called mad-cow disease, can be spread in herds when cattle eat infected tissue from rendered cattle. Makers of feed for swine, poultry and other animals can still use cattle parts for protein under the 1997 rule, but the bovine materials deemed risky for BSE infection would be banned under the new FDA rule.

The FDA has said the reason behind the proposed expansion in the feedban is to "control the risks associated with cross contamination throughout feed manufacture and distribution ... on the farm."

Pritchett, who spoke before a government advisory committee this week, said FDA has already completed the review of the 1,500 feedback letters it received since announcing on July 14 that it intended to change the feedban rule by banning SRM in all animal feed. He said the next step - writing the actual proposal - is underway, but gave no timeline for its completion.

Once it is complete, the FDA will allow for yet more public feedback and only after that is complete will work begin on a final rule.

In January, the FDA pledged to change the feedban rule but made no mention of banning specified risk materials. Instead it pledged to ban things such as plate waste, chicken litter and mammalian blood and blood products from cattle feed.

Chicken litter, which is excrement, feathers, bedding and leftover chicken feed, may be able to spread BSE because the feed component could contain ruminant material.

Pritchett said Thursday those restrictions are still being considered by the FDA, but the agency will concentrate first on the specified risk material ban. "We'll do an SRM ban first and then start dealing with the other measures," he said. "First things first. We're going to remove (the possibility of) infectivity from the feed channel and then we'll sort the rest out later."

Source: Dow Jones Newswires

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