New Rules to Fight Mad Cow

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2004-1-5

This is the VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT.

Last week, American Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman
announced new rules to protect the nation's food supply from Mad Cow
Disease. The rules represent the government's reaction to the first
American case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or B-S-E. A form
of B-S-E, Cruetzfeldt-Jakob Disease, can infect people. An estimated
one-hundred-fifty people worldwide died from the disease since
nineteen-eighty-six.

The first and most important new rule bans the use of what the
cattle industry calls downer cattle. Such animals are too sickly or
injured to walk. In the past, over one-hundred-fifty-thousand downer
cattle were killed for food each year. About five percent of them
were tested for disease. Now, meat from downer cattle will not be
permitted in human food.

In addition, the Department of
Agriculture will not mark meat as inspected and passed until tests
show that it is without disease. In the past, meat was prepared for
market before testing had been completed. This is how meat for the
first American case of Mad Cow Disease entered the food supply.

On December ninth, a downer cow was identified in Washington
State. Part of the cow's nervous system was tested. The rest of the
nervous system was taken for use as something other than human food.
The meat was sent to several states and the island of Guam.
America's National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the
case thirteen days later. The new rules require companies to hold
the meat from suspect cattle until tests show that they are without
disease.

The Agriculture Department also will ban some parts of cattle
from the human food supply. The parts include the eyes, brain, and
nervous system material from the back and bottom of the head. This
will be required for cattle older than thirty months of age. The
small intestine of all cattle will be banned from human food.

Two other measures will be put in place. A system used to kill
cattle called air-injection stunning will be banned. The method is
believed to spread brain tissue throughout the body of the animal.
And, meat that is mechanically removed from bones will no longer be
used for human food.

The rules are meant to ease fears of Americans and of beef
importers. Currently, more than thirty countries have banned
American beef.

This VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT was written by Mario
Ritter.