WASHINGTON - Seeking to close a gap in the nation's defense against mad cow disease, the Bush administration on Tuesday proposed to eliminate cow brains and spinal cords from feed for all animals, including chickens, pigs and pets.
The government already bans virtually all cattle remains from cattle feed. The new proposal from the Food and Drug Administration "will make an already small risk even smaller," acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach said.
The proposal would reduce the risk of infection by 90 percent, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. After a public comment period, the rules should take effect sometime next year, he said.
Some critics said the proposal falls short of what the FDA had promised 19 months ago, after the nation's first case of mad cow disease was confirmed.
At that time, the FDA said it would add three other items to the list of materials banned from cattle feed: blood, restaurant plate waste and poultry litter. All are potential pathways for mad cow disease.
The plan announced Tuesday is designed to eliminate the need for banning chicken litter from cattle feed because chickens would no longer be fed cow brains and spinal cords, among the cattle parts most likely to contain mad cow disease.
Contrary to FDA's previous plan, the new proposal does not ban cattle blood, often fed to calves as a milk replacer, or restaurant leftovers from cattle feed. It also doesn't ban chicken litter, which includes spilled feed as well as chicken manure, which scientists believe could contain mad-cow disease if the chickens had ingested tainted protein.
The feed rules are important because the only way cattle are known to get mad cow disease is from eating feed containing contaminated cattle remains.
Consumer groups and scientists said the government did not close all the loopholes because its new proposal bans just the brain and spinal cord of cattle 30 months and older and not all at-risk tissues, regardless of age, that could carry the disease.
FDA spokesman Sundlof, however, said Tuesday's proposal "is much more protective" than the earlier proposal.
"By removing the brain and spinal cord, you've taken out 90 percent of the risk," he said, citing a risk assessment prepared by Harvard University researchers.
