- Mad Cow Feed Recalled Over Mad Cow Violation
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- Livestock feed ingredients shipped to
9 states may have been contaminated with cattle remains in violation of
a 1997 ban to protect against mad cow disease, a manufacturer said Tuesday
[20 Jun 2006].
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- H.J. Baker & Bro. Inc. said it was
recalling 3 livestock feed ingredients, including 2 used to supplement
feed given to dairy cows. A sample tested by the Food and Drug Administration
was positive for cattle meat and bone meal, said Mark Hohnbaum, president
of the Westport, Connecticut-based company's feed products group.
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- "This is very concerning to us.
This isn't something that happens to us. We are very serious about food
safety," Hohnbaum said. Mad cow disease is only known to spread when
cows eat feed containing brain and other nerve tissue from infected cattle.
Protein from cattle was commonly added to cattle feed to speed growth until
the ban largely outlawed the practice.
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- Cattle tissue may have contaminated 2
feed ingredients given to dairy cows -- Pro-Lak and Pro-Amino II -- made
by H.J. Baker between August 2005 and June 2006. The 3rd of the recalled
ingredients, Pro-Pak with Porcine Meat and Bone, was mislabeled. It is
used in poultry feed.
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- The company announced the recall in the
wake of ongoing FDA inspections of its Albertville, Alabama plant, Hohnbaum
said. The inspections have found manufacturing and clerical issues, he
added.
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- The company shipped the ingredients to
feed manufacturers and dairy farms in the following states: Alabama, California,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Tennessee.
The company is notifying its customers of the voluntary recall. It does
not know how much of the feed ingredients it sold, Hohnbaum said.
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- http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3987413.html
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- On the Net:
- Food and Drug Administration animal feed
information:
- http://www.fda.gov/cvm/animalfeed.htm
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- Terry S. Singeltary Sr
- flounder9@verizon.net
-
- (The company is already notifying its
customers. Furthermore, the company does not know how much feed was contaminated,
so they are likely being very cautious and notifying customers, although
they may not have had animals exposed.
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- It is likely the company does not know
how much contamination each batch of feed received.
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- Customers should be forewarned that even
if an animal consumes some of this feed, it does not mean it is sure to
come down with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). It takes a certain
amount of infective material being consumed as well as certain conditions
within the animal for BSE to develop.
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- What is intriguing about this event is
that, though the FDA will fine the feed manufacturer, on-farm mixing of
feed that may contain prohibited material does not find its way onto the
FDA radar screen. There have been multiple cases of farm-site feed mixing
with confirmation of prohibited material being in the feed, and the feed
being fed to cattle. When this apparent oversight was brought to the attention
of the FDA, the reply was that they [the FDA] did not believe they had
jurisdiction over the farm, only the manufacturers. Since the FDA could
not demonstrate a prion to a court of law, they did not see how they could
prosecute a case of farm-site feed mixing.
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- Clearly, had the international team that
surveyed the situation in the US during 2004 known of this approach, their
recommendations may well have been different.
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- Without adherence to the feeding rules,
cases of BSE in the United States will likely continue to occur on a sporadic
basis. - Mod.TG
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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