Letter
January 5, 2004
The Honorable Ann M. Veneman, Secretary
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Room 200A
Washington, DC 20250
Dear Secretary Veneman:
Three years ago, we submitted the enclosed petition to you and
to the Secretary of Health and Human Services calling for stronger
steps to protect the public from mad cow disease and its human equivalent,
the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). We made five recommendations
at that time. None has been implemented.
On December 30, your office announced some much-needed new precautions
the USDA will be taking to reduce the risk of the spread of mad
cow disease, but these changes are grossly insufficient. While some
specific animal byproducts, such as mechanically separated beef,
skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia, eyes, vertebral column, spinal
cord and dorsal root ganglia of cattle over 30 months of age, are
now prohibited from use in the human food supply, the new precautions
raise the question of how these products will be used. If these
parts will instead be rendered into animal feed or pet food or for
use in medications, cosmetics, and supplements, wouldn’t these actions
simply be shifting the risk of prion infection from one set of products
to another?
- Given that mad cow disease has now been identified in the United
States, we urge you to immediately institute the following safety
measures:
- Ban the use of all animal-derived ingredients in livestock feeds
used for any species, given the likelihood that ruminant remains
may currently be fed to nonruminants animals, whose body parts
may then be recycled to ruminants.
- Prohibit animal byproducts in all medications, supplements,
and cosmetics.
- Label all foods containing animal byproducts, such as gelatin
or “natural flavorings,” indicating both the presence of animal
byproducts and the species of origin.
- Provide warning labels on all foods that carry a risk of vCJD,
using standards similar to those used for tobacco and alcohol
products.
Institute comprehensive monitoring programs to check for diseased
animals and humans in the United States. Monitoring programs for
BSE and other encephalopathies in animals should include but not
be limited to testing all suspect animals (rather than a fraction
of them). For humans, monitoring programs should be implemented
that require all states to report CJD cases and dementia of unknown
cause, especially in young individuals, to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, so that any cases where vCJD is suspected
can be evaluated.
We would be pleased to meet with you to discuss these recommendations.
Sincerely, Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D.
Nutrition Director
Ext. 354; alanou@pcrm.org
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