Posted: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:00 pm
The available scientific evidence justifies the conclusion that the risk of contracting mad cow disease from U.S. beef is extremely low.
For some people, however, especially those in major overseas markets like Japan, the risk is not low enough.
If the United States wants to gain the confidence of those risk-averse consumers, the Food and Drug Administration will have to adopt stricter regulations on livestock feed than it proposed last week.
If U.S. regulators don’t want to go that far, they at least ought to allow private companies to test all the cattle they slaughter for bovine spongiform encephalopathy and to advertise that fact to consumers.
The new rule proposed by the FDA would ban the use of brain and spinal columns from any cow older than 30 months from use in pet and animal feed. Those materials already are banned from cattle feed.
The proposed ban does not cover material from younger cattle, blood used as milk replacement for calves, restaurant table waste or chicken waste from poultry barns.
Although the proposed ban would be significantly tighter than current regulations, it will not ease concern that the ban still permits too many pathways by which BSE could be passed to cattle. After the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was discovered, an international team of experts last year recommended a complete ban on use of animal parts in cattle feed, as well as a tighter ban on animal parts in feed for other livestock.
Since the USDA began testing high-risk cattle — those sick, injured or unable to walk — for BSE, only two cases have been found in the United States out of almost half a million tests. Neither cow entered the food supply. There have been no human deaths in the United States linked to eating U.S. beef.
For most consumers, the risk is too low to forgo the pleasures of a sizzling ribeye. Members of the Journal Star editorial board, for example, enjoy beef regularly.
But it’s irksome that the American regulatory system does not permit consumers the option of eating beef from cattle that they know have been tested for the presence of BSE. Creekstone Farms in Kansas has been denied permission to conduct such tests.
If the U.S. government is going to maintain mad cow standards that are loose by international standards, it owes it to consumers to open the door to private companies who want to provide beef that has been more rigorously screened. Consumers should have the freedom to choose.