About Mad Cow Disease (BSE)

Mad cow disease, officially known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE, is a degenerative neurological disease that affects cattle. BSE is transmitted among cattle through feed that contains animal by-products from BSE-infected cattle. In the U.S., several measures have been taken to prevent BSE in cattle:

• In 1989, the FDA banned the importation of live cattle and certain beef products from countries that had reported cases of BSE.
• In 1997, the FDA banned cattle feed that contained animal by-products from ruminants.
• In 2004, the USDA instituted measures to ensure that no bovine tissues known to be at high risk for carrying the agent of BSE enter the human food supply. These "Specified Risk Materials" include the brain, skull, eyes and spinal cord of cattle 30 months or older.
• In 2004, the U.S. increased its cattle surveillance program to detect BSE in cattle.

Additional measures being considered by FDA would eliminate the present exemption in the feed rule that allows mammalian blood and blood products to be fed to other ruminants as a protein source. A second measure would ban the use of "poultry litter" as a feed ingredient for ruminant animals, as poultry litter might include poultry feed, which may legally contain protein that is prohibited in ruminant feed, such as bovine meat and bone meal. A third measure would ban the use of "plate waste" as a feed ingredient for ruminants, which might include uneaten meat and other meat scraps collected from restaurant operations and rendered into meat and bone meal for animal feed. A final measure would require equipment, facilities or production lines to be dedicated to non-ruminant animal feeds if they use protein that is prohibited in ruminant feed in the production of other types of feed, as a means of preventing cross-contamination.

It is important to distinguish between BSE, which is a cattle disease, and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which is the BSE-linked disease that affects humans. For both the cattle disease and its human form, most cases have been found in Great Britain: As of January 2004, more than 180,000 cases of BSE were confirmed in cattle in Great Britain, 97% of the total cases worldwide. Human cases are very rare; as of February 2004, there were 146 cases of definite and probable vCJD in the United Kingdom.

At Laura's Lean Beef, we have, since 1985, never allowed any animal by-products in our cattle feed. Any feeds containing reprocessed animal tissue, fecal material or food waste are strictly prohibited. On-farm inspections and an affidavit-based protocol ensure that feed standards are being met. Additionally, each head of cattle in the Laura's Lean Beef program can be tracked back to the producer.