Story by: The Humane Society of the United States Frequently Asked Questions about Mad Cow Disease in the U.S. Since the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease in Washington state, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's swift response to ban downed animals from the human food supply, concerned consumers and animal advocates alike have contacted The HSUS, trying to seek further information. Below are some frequently asked questions and our responses.

What is BSE, commonly referred to as Mad Cow Disease?

BSE is the bovine (cattle) form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs): BSE stands for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. As its name indicates, it causes the brains of cattle to become spongy, and it produces behavior such as staggering that gives rise to the name Mad Cow Disease. BSE results when a prion protein becomes abnormally folded. In cattle, these misshapen prions are typically found in the brain, spinal cord, and the small intestine.

The disease is believed to have originated in Britain, where it was discovered in 1986 and increased rapidly, peaking in 1992 at more than 3,000 cases per month. It is not contagious. Healthy cattle are infected with BSE when they are fed protein supplemented with BSE-infected animal products. The practice of feeding cattle protein to cattle was banned in Britain in 1988. Feeding certain high-risk cow parts to cattle was banned in the United States in 1997 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), although that ban has been weakly enforced and plagued with non-compliance problems, according to two studies by the General Accounting Office and the FDA's own data made public in October 2003.

In 1996, evidence surfaced that BSE is transmissible to humans. Eating infected material is the likely cause of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). A fatal degenerative brain disease with no known cure, vCJD can cause memory loss, depression, spasms, incapacitation, and an inability to communicate, as well as premature death. More than 130 people are known to have died from vCJD to date.

What has the USDA banned?

On December 30, 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a series of steps designed to address concerns about the safety of U.S. beef. The USDA's announcement came after a single Holstein, a downer who could not stand, tested positive for BSE—and after the agency was pushed to take immediate action by The HSUS and others.

The USDA has taken the following steps:

Immediately banned downer cattle from being used in human food. Unlike pending legislation, the administrative ban does not cover species other than cows. Nor does it prohibit the use of downed cows in edible products intended for animals other than humans (pet food and feed for chickens, pigs, and other animals).

Announced intentions to stop the practice of labeling animals as "inspected and passed" and allowing their meat to be sold while BSE test results are still pending.

Banned certain high-risk tissue from cattle over 30 months old such as the skull, brain, and eyes—as well as the small intestines from cattle of any age—for use in human food. These by-products will still be allowed in the feed of animals other than cattle.

Prohibited certain high-risk tissue from being included in meat processed using the Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR) system. AMR is a method of extracting meat close to the bone.

Banned air-injected stunning guns, which can contaminate meat with high-risk tissue. Most federally inspected plants in the United States stopped using air-injected stunning devices prior to this ruling. That technology has been replaced by captive bolt stun guns and non-penetrating captive bolt guns, which are designed to knock animals unconscious and are still allowed under USDA rules.

Prohibited Mechanically Separated meat from entering the human food supply.

Items 2, 3, 4, and 5 will be published in the Federal Register on January 12, 2004. Once the Register is published, these four rules will go into effect. This announcement was made on January 8, 2004, by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

To learn more about this announcement, or to get information on how you can submit comments on these rulings, go to FSIS's web site. You can also read the USDA's statement on the downer ban and the other BSE control measures announced on December 30.

What is a "downer"?

According to statements by USDA officials, the administrative ban on the use of downers for human food applies to all nonambulatory disabled cattle—i.e., any that are unable to stand or walk, regardless of the reason. This is important because industry has argued that animals unable to walk due to injury, rather than illness, pose no threat to the food supply. The USDA apparently recognized that it is very difficult for inspectors to correctly discern the reason an animal is nonambulatory. In fact, the Washington state case involves a cow whose records indicated she was unable to walk due to "acute calving complications" (injuries while giving birth), not because of an underlying illness.

The USDA's ban on downer cattle in the human food supply will encourage improved care and handling to prevent cows from becoming downers in the first place. Because downers are no longer allowed in human food, they are now worth less money than they were before the ban.

As Temple Grandin—advisor to the American Meat Institute and others in the meat industry—long ago explained in Meat & Poultry Magazine, "Ninety percent of all downers are preventable." For those cows who still become downed, the ban means farmers will have little reason to transport them live to slaughterplants because the animals cannot be sold for human food. Rendering plants do not need—nor are most equipped to handle—animals arriving alive. So the ban will minimize the inhumane practices of dragging, kicking, and prodding with electric shocks to move downers.

The USDA's ban does not currently require humane euthanasia for animals as soon as they become downed. The HSUS will continue pressing to require that.

Are downer cows the only animals affected by BSE-type diseases?

No, many animals are affected by TSEs, including the following related diseases that have been detected so far in different species:

Cattle and certain wildlife (eland, kudu, pumas, lions, and tigers)—Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), discovered 1986.

Deer and elk—Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), 1967.

Domestic cats—Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy (FSE), 1986.

Humans—variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), 1996.

Mink—Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy (TME), 1947.

Sheep and goats—Scrapie, 1700s.

Furthermore, TSEs can remain in an animal for months or years before showing any symptoms of the disease. Thus, besides downers, seemingly healthy looking animals may be carriers of TSE. Currently, there are no reliable tests to detect whether a live animal has TSE. There are TSE tests that can detect prions in dead animals. However, these tests are only accurate if there are a high number of irregularly folded prions in the animal.

What are the regulations for livestock feed, and are animal products being fed to other animals?

The FDA, which is responsible for regulating production of feed for poultry, livestock, and other animals, established a ban in 1997 on the use of most animal protein in feed for cattle and other ruminants. This ban does not include cattle blood fed to infant calves in milk replacer. In Britain, a person recently died of vCJD after receiving a blood transfusion from someone later known to have vCJD. In the U.S., anyone who has been in Britain for more than 6 months is not allowed to donate blood on the chance that they may have vCJD. Yet FDA continues to allow calves to be fed blood from other cows that may have BSE.

The use of mammalian protein in the manufacture of feed for pigs and poultry continues to be allowed because it is thought those species are resistant to contracting a TSE. However, as long as feed is manufactured using materials at high risk for containing dangerous prions, there are concerns because of:

Noncompliance with the FDA ban, including misfeeding on the farm and the mislabeling of prohibited feed;

Accidental contamination during manufacture (e.g., equipment used for ruminant feed that was previously used to manufacture feed for pigs or poultry);

Poultry manure which is sometimes fed to cattle. It could contain spilled poultry feed tainted with TSE-contaminated animal products. Furthermore, it is not yet known whether manure from poultry could harbor active prions;

Potentially contaminated manure used as fertilizer.

How do animals and humans become infected with TSEs?

Cattle typically develop the disease after eating a prepared feed mix that contains meat or rendered animal products from animals harboring a TSE. Ruminant animals, such as cattle, are true herbivores and do not naturally consume animal by-products. The practice of "feeding cattle back to cattle" was designed by industrial agriculture; animals are fed protein sources from other rendered animals to increase their rate of weight-gain and bring them to market more rapidly. Unlike bacteria and viruses, TSE prions are not easily destroyed by heating, cooking, or digestion.

If TSE-infected animals are not intercepted, their contaminated parts such as brain or spinal cord tissue can enter the human food supply, even after the USDA ban kicks in this month.

Currently, after killing an animal, slaughterhouses use a saw to cut the carcass along the spinal column, and this process has been shown to disperse small pieces of the spinal cord on surrounding meat. It has also been shown that current decontamination methods are ineffective in removing this high-risk tissue from the carcass. Inspection of live animals before slaughter is intended to prevent sick and diseased cattle from entering the food supply. However, cattle with BSE may not show symptoms of the disease, especially if the animal is younger than two years of age—the common age for most beef cattle.

Is it safe to eat beef?

Scientific understanding of BSE is not complete, so this is a difficult question to answer. The HSUS advises consumers to "eat with conscience" by practicing the 3 Rs: refining, reducing or replacing use of animal products as appropriate.

By refining, you can choose to purchase meat from farmers who are engaged in programs that promote greater welfare for their livestock—Certified Humane, for example. You can reduce the amount of meat purchased or reduce the amount of factory-farmed meat purchased. There are many small, independent family farms humanely raising livestock without intensive confinement or animal by-products in their diet. Develop a relationship with the person who raises your food and see for yourself the care and safety that goes into raising an animal. Farmers' markets or food cooperatives will typically have locally grown and raised products, including meat.

To ensure that you don't consume any BSE-infected products or risk exposure to a variety of other food-borne illnesses transmitted through meat, or because of concern for the well-being of animals, consider replacing meat altogether with a vegan or vegetarian diet.

Are my companion animals at risk from BSE-infected pet food?

Although there is no scientific evidence or confirmed cases of dogs contracting a form of TSE, there have been confirmed cases of Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy in approximately 100 cats in Europe. To date, there have been no confirmed cases of FSE in the United States. Further, it is believed that the cats who contracted FSE in Europe were fed "butcher scraps" as opposed to commercial pet food.

Currently, downed animals, as well as other condemned meat, can be used in pet foods. These meats, known as the 4-D (dead, dying, diseased or down) meats, are sent to rendering facilities, along with other offal (animal products considered unfit for human consumption) from factory farms. They are then boiled, melted, or otherwise processed to become tallow, meal, or other ingredients to be used in edible and inedible products, including pet foods.

There are precautions you can take to help ensure that your companion animals are safe. First, look for specific protein sources. An ingredient such as "meat" or "meat meal" or "animal by-products" doesn't tell you what animal or animal part was used. A specific source will help you identify what animal or animal part the protein was derived from, so look for "chicken", "lamb meal," or other specifically named animal sources as well as parts like "chicken liver," "turkey heart," etc.

Next, you can call the manufacturer of the food and ask them about their animal ingredients. Find out their policy on BSE and ask what they are doing to protect your pet. The company's contact information should be on the food container. And finally, remember that your cat is a carnivore, and will not flourish on a vegetarian diet. A raw diet or table scraps may also put your pet at risk and cause an imbalance of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals if not fed under the express direction of a veterinarian experienced with raw food diets.

What further measures are needed to protect animals and reduce the risk of BSE?

Congress should promptly enact S. 1298/H.R. 2519, the Downed Animal Protection Act, introduced by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Representatives Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Amo Houghton (R-NY). This legislation would codify and make permanent the administrative ban on using downed cows for human food. It would also cover other species of downed animals, and require that downers be immediately humanely euthanized.

Had this legislation been enacted in 2002—as both the House and Senate approved in their respective farm bills, but a few key members of the Agriculture Committee decided to undo during conference—the mad cow in Washington state never would have been slaughtered for human food.

We must also be watchful for any efforts in Congress to weaken the USDA's administrative ban, such as attempting a narrower definition of downers to exclude animals that supposedly become nonambulatory only because of injury.

Every cow should be tested for BSE before being used in human food or pet food, and restrictions should be put in place to ensure that high-risk tissue from rendered cows does not end up in pet food (as with human food).

FDA must strengthen enforcement of its feed ban and close loopholes in it to prohibit blood, manure, slaughterhouse waste and other animal products from being used as feed for any farm animal.

All persons in the animal industry should be trained on how to prevent animals from becoming downers.

All individual animals should be traceable from birth, using non-invasive, tamper-resistant bio-metric techniques such as retinal vascular eye scans.

Country of origin labels should be incorporated into all animal products and products containing animal by-products. This would provide consumers with more information about where their food is coming from and a way to check for adequate animal welfare and food safety policies.