Is mad cow disease going to cost US beef raisers money?
More control sought on mad cow disease
UPI Science News
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) _ Lawyers for health activists say they want
federal agencies to take stronger action to prevent cases of mad-cow
disease.
Attorneys at the Center for Food Safety in Washington say today they
have petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of
cattle blood in cattle feed _ a practice linked to the spread of
mad-cow disease among cattle and CJD, Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease, among
humans.
Lawyer D'Arcy Kemnitz says, ''The U.S. lags behind Britain and Europe
in implementing safeguards in the feeding of animals and allows
practices that should be banned, such as feeding pigs to pigs, pigs to
cattle and cattle blood products to calves.''
An outbreak of mad-cow disease in Britain is associated with at least
33 cases of CJD, a similar disease, in humans, states one petition that
would prohibit such practices.
The petition would require meat suppliers to maintain paperwork on meat
supply sources for 10 years. ''Now they only have to keep that
paperwork for a year,'' Kemnitz said, which makes it useless to track
supplies, because CJD infection can remain dormant for years before
symptoms occur.
CJD and mad-cow disease are brain illnesses known as Transmissible
Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE). These diseases cause dementia-like
symptoms and are almost universally fatal. Confirmation of the disease
can usually be made only by autopsy.
Another petition calls for the Centers for Disease Control to make TSE
illnesses reportable, mandating that doctors and health officials file
reports when these diseases are encountered.
Kemnitz said such reporting would give health officials an idea of how
frequently these diseases occur and would also give them a better
chance to track how humans and animals were infected.
Such diseases are known to occur in deer, elk, sheep, squirrels and
mink, as well as cattle and humans. A similar petition is being filed
in all 50 states with the appropriate state health officials, Kemnitz
said.
One of the petitioners is Utah deer hunter R. Douglas McEwen, 30, who
has been diagnosed with CJD. McEwen hunted deer and elk, and doctors
believe he may have contracted CJD by eating or handling deer or elk
infected with ''mad-deer'' disease.
Industry and government are concerned that McEwen, a frequent blood
donor, may have contaminated blood products internationally.
Kemnitz said, ''In the United States, efforts to identify, monitor and
prevent human and animal deaths from TSE diseases have been grossly
inadequate, despite the fact that people, deer, elk and sheep in the U.
S. are dying from these diseases, known as CJD in people, chronic
wasting disease in deer and elk, and scrapie in sheep.
Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, said, ''Given
what we know now, it is unconscionable that the CDC is not strictly
monitoring this disease, and that the FDA is still allowing the feeding
of blood and other animal byproducts to animals.''
(Written by Ed Susman from West Palm Beach, Fla.)
Copyright 1999 United Press International (via Comtex). All rights reserved
MORE CONTROL SOUGHT ON MAD COW DISEASE., United Press International, 01-08-1999. |
