A Texas cattle herd is being checked for possible contamination with deadly mad cow disease after a feed mill admitted mixing recycled cattle parts into the animals' feed, U.S. health officials said yesterday.
The move was described as a precautionary step by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which enforces a strict ban on feeding animal and bone meal back to cattle and sheep.
Inspectors were dispatched to check whether the banned feed was actually used improperly and if any cattle posed a risk to public health. About 1,200 animals will be "isolated" during the investigation, officials said.
"We don't use the term 'quarantine' for a situation like this," said Brad Stone, a spokesman for the FDA in Washington. "Basically we've asked and they've agreed to keep (the herd) isolated, and we're in the process of analyzing it to see if there was any contamination problem."
Officials would not release the name or other details of the mill and feedlot involved.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a fatal brain-wasting disease caused by infectious proteins known as prions.
People who consume BSE-contaminated meat are said to be at risk of contracting a variant of fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. About 80 deaths from this new variant have been reported in Europe.
No evidence of BSE or the new human variant has been found in the United States. But the contamination problems in Europe have triggered widespread public alarm, devastating the European beef industry and putting U.S. producers and regulators on full alert.
U.S. officials said protections at the border offer the first line of defense, backed by feed-recycling rules and inspections of U.S. producers.
"There's a very, very low risk of BSE arising in this country, and we expect to keep it that way," said Ed Curlett, a spokesman for the animal and plant health inspection service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Representatives of the FDA, USDA, renderers and beef producers plan to meet Monday to discuss how to improve compliance with current beef-safety rules.
The meeting was called by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association before the latest incident arose in Texas. Industry officials said the initial purpose of the meeting was to brief members of the incoming Bush administration and determine what new steps might be needed to protect the U.S. food supply, and reassure consumers.
Recycled cattle products are allowed to be mixed into hog and poultry feed, because those animals are not at risk of contracting the same prion disease as cattle. Feedlots are required to follow special labeling and feed-handling rules to make sure the products go to the appropriate livestock.
Now, the Texas incident shows that these rules are not always followed. In addition, the FDA has estimated that only about 84 percent of large feed producers and 59 percent of smaller mills are in full compliance.
That raises the possibility that some contaminated feed could be slipping through the system, although tests have never found the BSE pathogen in the United States. Current rendering technology destroys nearly all disease- causing agents but not the brain-killing proteins responsible for mad cow disease.
"The one thing rendering does not deactivate is the BSE prion, if it ever were in the animals," said Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association, a trade group. "That's why we have the FDA feed ban."
Despite the technological difficulties and spotty compliance with the rules, independent food-safety experts said the U.S. beef supply poses no significant health risk.
Dean O. Cliver, a professor of food safety at the University of California at Davis and member of an FDA advisory panel on transmissible brain diseases, called for strict enforcement of the rules in the Texas case to reassure consumers.
If mistakes were made, he said, the offenders should be fined. But he added that he saw no reason to take more draconian steps right away, such as destroying the animals now under watch.
"I am satisfied that the safeguards we have in place are adequate," Cliver said. "If somebody goofed, there should be penalties, but I really believe we have gone the extra mile for protection."
E-mail Carl T. Hall at carlhall@sfchronicle.com
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