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Beach Runner 25-08-2005 02:55 AM

Subject: Docket #99P-0033/CP1 Loopholes in BSE Legislature
 
As a vegan I'm protected. What is so insidious about this disease the
long incubation period. There is no way they are isolated cases, they
come from lots, fed the same feed. There are huge loopholes that should
be closed.

Subject: Docket #99P-0033/CP1 Now is the time to take action.




The U.S. government has just investigated a third possible case of
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow
disease, in the United States. The first case was confirmed in late 2003
in a Canadian-born cow in Washington State, and the second just this
past June in a U.S.-born Texas cow. Scientists have concluded that
exposure to the BSE agent causes a variant form of Creutzfeldt - Jakob
disease (nvCJD) in humans. The common characteristics of mad cow
disease and nvCJD are that they are both invariably fatal. To date, over
155 cases of nvCJD have been reported worldwide. Though the recent
investigation revealed that the cow did not have BSE, this latest
discovery less than two months from the Texas case raises serious
concerns about the adequacy of FDA’s regulations to address the spread
of mad cow disease and its ability to do its job – protect the safety of
our food supply.



Scientists have concluded that mad cow disease is spread through the use
of contaminated animal feed. The FDA issued restrictions on animal feed
in 1997 that the agency claims create a “firewall” against the spread of
mad cow disease. In fact, this “firewall” is little more than a screen
door. The FDA’s regulations are riddled with holes and animal feed
remains a route by which the disease can be spread into the U.S. food
supply.



While FDA’s 1997 rule prohibits the feeding of ruminant (cattle, sheep,
deer, goats) material to other ruminants, hundreds of millions of pounds
of cattle blood and fat, and the meat, blood, fat and bone meal from
pigs and chickens are legally fed to cattle every year. American cattle
are also being fed a million tons a year of chicken litter and feces
contaminated with the cattle meat and bone meal fed to those chickens.
These are practices that can spread mad cow disease and are banned in
countries like England and Japan.



In 1999, the Center for Food Safety and others filed a legal petition
for rulemaking with the FDA asking the agency to close these dangerous
loopholes. While they solicited some comments on the issue in 2002, the
agency has yet to provide a substantive answer to our petition and has
refused to take the actions necessary to close the existing loopholes
and protect public health. Even the General Accounting Office (the
watchdog arm of Congress) issued a report in 2002 that found serious
flaws in the FDA’s regulations.



Take action now to support CFS’ legal petition and demand the FDA close
the loopholes that put our public health - and the integrity of the
agency – at risk.





Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):
FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Docket #99P-0033/CP1

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and others filed petition number
99P-0033/CP1 in 1999 in response to dangerous loopholes in FDA's feed
restrictions and regulations regarding mad cow disease in the United
States. Now, nearly six years later and after investigating our third
possible case of a BSE infected cow in the U.S., the FDA must take
action to protect our public health and food supply. The recent
announcement that this third cow did not have BSE is far from a relief,
and instead raises serious concerns about the efficacy of FDA's regulations.

The spread of mad cow disease in the United States is a serious threat
that must be addressed in a meaningful way. We can not continue to sit
on our hands and allow BSE to quietly make its way into American beef. I
support CFS' petition to amend the current inadequate FDA regulations
and a ban on the use of any and all mammalian or avian proteins in the
feed of animals that may enter the human food supply. FDA should close
the existing loopholes by taking immediate action on the following:

1. Ban the use of blood and blood products in cattle feed.
2. Ban the use of poultry litter, including bedding, waste and spilled
feed, as cattle feed. The use of such feed can allow materials not
permitted for ruminants to be fed back to cattle as part of feed created
from poultry litter.
3. Ban the use of plate waste in ruminant feed. Current regulations
allow for inspected meat products that have been cooked and offered for
human food and then further processed for feed, to be fed back to ruminants.
4. Ban the use of salvaged pet foods in ruminant feed. Pet food destined
for the retail market can make its way back to the cattle feed market as
distressed or salvaged pet foods.
5. Ban the use of possible "silent carriers" of mad cow like diseases,
such as pigs and chickens, in cattle feed.
6. Ban the use of gelatin products and proteins from pigs and horses in
cattle feed.

usual suspect 28-08-2005 03:35 PM

Beach Runner wrote:
> As a vegan I'm protected.


You are *not* protected, moron. You're still at risk from a variety of
factors including blood transfusion and other blood products (plasma,
drugs or immunizations made from plasma, etc.), as well as from
fertilizers made with bloodmeal, bonemeal, and so on. Did you know that
many of your organic fertilizers are made from dead animal parts, dummy?

http://gardenline.usask.ca/misc/common3.html
http://tinyurl.com/afkvs
Etc.


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