The Next Bad Beef Scandal?
Cattle feed now contains things like chicken manure and dead cats
Studies of manure-feed safety, argue the authors of the Preventive Medicine report, have been conducted largely in controlled environments, not in the casual, unregulated conditions on most farms. Few studies address public health aspects, and there is an overall dearth of published information. "Feeding manure may not be aesthetically pleasing, but it is safe if you process it properly," says the FDA's McChesney. "If you don't, it's like playing with matches around gasoline." Rodney Noel, secretary of the AAFCO feed-standards group, agrees there is a serious regulatory gap. "There should be some decent production oversight of these types of byproducts," he says, "particularly when there is a possibility of contamination."
Mad cows. The contents of animal feed are attracting more attention as a result of the outbreak of so-called mad cow disease in Great Britain and concern that similar problems could occur here. More than a dozen Britons died after eating beef from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The cattle are thought to have contracted the disease by eating rendered brains and spinal cords of sheep infected with a condition called scrapie. While scrapie is far less common in the United States, on August 4 the FDA ordered a halt to feeding all slaughterhouse wastes to U.S. cattle and sheep as a BSE safety precaution. Seventy-five percent of the nation's 90 million cattle had been eating feed containing slaughterhouse byproducts, so the ban raises the possibility that more farmers and feed manufacturers will turn to cheap additives like manure and other questionable waste products.
The Department of Agriculture recently instituted a high-tech regime of meat inspections to catch bacteria like E. coli, but those procedures are still being introduced into packing plants. In addition, the department is hobbled by old laws, as it was in the Hudson Foods case: It couldn't legally close the company's Columbus plant once problems were discovered but could only recommend the company suspend operations. Hudson complied, but the department's inability to act unilaterally, Glickman said, was a frustration. "One of the biggest loopholes out there is the fact that I do not have authority to order a recall of bad product or bad meat," he said. That may change if the administration succeeds in pushing through a legislative fix this fall. Consumers, meanwhile, who generally know little or nothing about what happens to meat on its way to their table, also have no way to learn if their beef has been fattened on chicken droppings. And maybe they don't want to know.
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