# Risk Reduction...BSE...Downer Cattle and Dead Stock of Cattle & other species



## terry (Sep 13, 2002)

Subject: Risk Reduction Strategies for Potential BSE Pathways Involving Downer Cattle and Dead Stock of Cattle and Other Species
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 08:41:25 -0600
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]

[Federal Register: January 21, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 13)]
[Proposed Rules]

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

9 CFR Ch. I

[Docket No. 01-068-1]
RIN 0579-AB43

Risk Reduction Strategies for Potential BSE Pathways Involving
Downer Cattle and Dead Stock of Cattle and Other Species

AGENCY: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA.

ACTION: Advance notice of proposed rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: We are soliciting public comment to help us develop approaches
to control the risk that dead stock and nonambulatory animals could
serve as potential pathways for the spread of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, if that disease should ever be introduced into the
United States.

DATES: We will consider all comments that we receive on or before March
24, 2003.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by postal mail/commercial delivery
or by e-mail. If you use postal mail/commercial delivery, please send
four copies of your comment (an original and three copies) to: Docket
No. 01-068-1, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station
3C71, 4700 River Road Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1231. Please state
that your comment refers to Docket No. 01-068-1. If you use e-mail,
address your comment to [email protected]. Your comment must
be contained in the body of your message; do not send attached files.
Please include your name and address in your message and ``Docket No.
01-068-1'' on the subject line.
You may read any comments that we receive on this docket in our
reading room. The reading room is located in room 1141 of the USDA
South Building, 14th Street and Independence Avenue SW., Washington,
DC. Normal reading room hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday, except holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you,
please call (202) 690-2817 before coming.
APHIS documents published in the Federal Register, and related
information, including the names of organizations and individuals who
have commented on APHIS dockets, are available on the Internet at
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppd/rad/webrepor.html.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Lisa Ferguson, Emergency Programs,
VS, APHIS, 4700 River Road, Unit 41, Riverdale, MD 20737-1237; (301)
734-8073.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

We are soliciting comments to help us develop an approach to
control risks associated with disposal of nonambulatory and dead
livestock. These animals could serve as potential pathways for the
spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), if that disease
should ever be introduced into the United States.
It is well established that domestic and wild animals may contract
diseases--especially viral and bacterial diseases--from animals that
die on the farm and do not receive proper disposal. Direct exposure to
improperly buried dead stock \1\ and consumption of feed or grass
contaminated by run-off that passed over such animals are some of the
routes of potential exposure for these diseases.
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\1\ Dead stock are livestock that die or are killed before being
sent to slaughter; they are sometimes referred to as ``on-farm
deads.'' When used in this notice in reference to cattle, this term
refers to adult cattle over 24 months of age, since cattle that die
at a younger age present a greatly reduced likelihood of harboring
BSE infectivity.
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Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a disease of cattle and
is a member of a class called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
(TSE's). Other TSE's also cause various diseases in animals and humans.
BSE was first documented in the United Kingdom in 1986 and has since
spread to approximately 21 other countries in Europe, and to Israel and
Japan. There has never been a case of BSE identified in the United
States. However, other types of TSE diseases have affected U.S.
livestock and wildlife, including scrapie in sheep and goats and
chronic wasting disease (CWD) in both captive and free-ranging elk and
deer.
In many ways, TSE diseases present a more difficult problem than
other animal diseases with regard to controlling the spread of disease
through dead stock. This is due to the nature of TSE diseases, the
general lack of live-animal tests for them, and the extreme hardiness
of TSE agents. These issues are discussed in some detail below.
Surveillance programs in European countries where BSE exist have
found that BSE is present in a higher percentage of nonambulatory and
dead livestock than in the general cattle populations. An animal at the
point of death from BSE is also generally in its most infectious state,
with a high concentration of the BSE agent in certain tissues. Studies
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), independent researchers,
and the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (discussed below) concur that
if BSE were introduced into the United States, dead stock that were
rendered and allowed into the animal feed chain would pose a risk of
spreading the disease. In January 2001, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations issued a press release urging
countries to take steps to reduce BSE risks; one of the recommended
practices was correct disposal of dead stock. Diseases other than BSE
are also an issue in the disposal of dead stock.
The BSE agent is remarkably hardy and resistant to destruction by
standard cooking practices, sterilization procedures, and rendering
processes. Generally, the rendering processes used in the United States
will reduce the infectivity of a TSE agent in the rendered material by
a factor of 1 to 3 logs.\2\ The continuous rendering processes most
widely used in the United States reduce infectivity by 2 logs or less;
batch processing, used for less than 5 percent of rendered animals, can
reduce infectivity by 3 logs. Since some BSE agent survives rendering,
if BSE were to be present in a rendered product that is used in cattle
feed (in deliberate or accidental violation of the feed ban imposed by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)) it could lead to the
amplification and spread of


[[Page 2704]]


BSE among cattle consuming that feed. There is also a possibility that
animal feed containing a TSE agent from the rendered protein of one
species (e.g., scrapie in sheep) could cause development of disease in
animals of another species consuming that feed (e.g., cause BSE in
cattle). This is, in fact, the leading theory for how BSE originated in
the United Kingdom.
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\2\ A 1-log reduction is reduction by a factor of 10, 2 logs =
100, 3 logs = 1000, etc.
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Given this situation, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS) wants to take steps to limit the potential pathways
through which BSE could spread in U.S. animal populations, in case it
is introduced despite efforts to keep it out of the United States.


TSE Disease Surveillance


Data from APHIS animal disease surveillance programs can be used to
detect occurrences of disease, provide information for better policy
decisions, and better understand the diseases. Most surveillance
programs are based on data from live-animal tests; however, since such
tests are generally unavailable for TSE's, in this area APHIS generally
relies on observation of animals exhibiting signs of TSE's and tissue
samples from dead animals. Since 1990, animals targeted for BSE
surveillance by APHIS include cattle exhibiting signs of neurological
disease in the field (i.e., prior to being brought to slaughter),
cattle condemned at slaughter for neurologic reasons, rabies-negative
cattle submitted to public health laboratories,\3\ neurologic cases
submitted to veterinary diagnostic laboratories and teaching hospitals,
nonambulatory cattle (``downer cattle'') over 24 months of age at
slaughter, and adult cattle dying from unknown causes on farms. The
primary reason we target downer animals is that surveillance data from
European countries in which BSE has been detected indicate that downer
cattle have a greater incidence of BSE.\4\ If BSE enters the United
States, downer cattle testing programs are likely to first reveal it.
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SNIP...

Summary of Issues Open for Comment


[sbull] What is the preferred approach and associated costs to
affected parties for controlling risks associated with disposal of
nonambulatory and dead livestock?
[sbull] Are there any cross-cutting issues between safe disposal of
specified risk materials such as brain and spinal cord and safe
disposal options for downer and on-farm dead animals?
[sbull] Are there practical ways to cull higher-risk downer cattle,
e.g. cattle that may have a non-obvious CNS condition, before they are
sent to slaughter? How should risk factors such as age, physical
condition, and the source and type of cattle be considered when sending
downer cattle to slaughter? What would such culling cost affected
parties?
[sbull] Since APHIS currently relies on collecting samples from
downer animals, at slaughter and other locations, as a key part of BSE
surveillance, how could we continue to obtain samples for testing from
downer cattle if they are not sent to slaughter?
[sbull] What carcass disposal methods are safe, fast, complete, and
environmentally acceptable? What combination of regulatory
requirements, incentives, and cooperative relationships with production
and disposal industries would result in sustainable procedures for the
safe disposal of dead stock, and what are the costs associated with
such solutions?
[sbull] Can rendering be an effective means for safely disposing of
dead stock in a manner that minimizes risks of spreading BSE and other
animal diseases? Under what conditions? What are the associated
technical, economic, regional, environmental, and practical business
issues?
[sbull] What are equitable ways to share the costs of dead stock
disposal, to concentrate and increase economic opportunities and social
benefits that can be associated with responsible dead stock disposal?
[sbull] What businesses, levels of government, or other parties
should be involved in dead stock disposal? Should such programs be
organized on the


[[Page 2711]]


county or State level, a regional level, or a national level, and what
role should the Federal Government play?
[sbull] Is there a need to particularly address disposal of sheep
and goats with regard to scrapie, and disposal of captive elk and deer
with regard to CWD? What dead stock disposal issues are common to all
species, and what issues are of particular importance to different
types of producers?


Done in Washington, DC, this 15th day of January 2003.
Bill Hawks,
Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs.
[FR Doc. 03-1210 Filed 1-17-03; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 3410-34-P

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/03-1210.htm

BAN ALL DOWNERS/SRMS/MRMS FROM ALL SPECIES FROM BEING FED
TO ANY OTHER SPECIES.

NO SCRAPIE SHEEP/GOATS OR CWD/TSE DEER/ELK TO BE RENDERED,
ONLY INCINERATED!

RAPID BSE/TSE TEST _ALL_ DOWNERS!

RAPID BSE/TSE TEST 1 MILLION CATTLE ANNUALLY FOR FIVE YEARS!

MAKE CJD/TSE REPORTABLE NATIONALLY!

######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy <[email protected]> #########

Greetings list members,

for those of you interested;

Docket No. 01-068-1 -- Risk Reduction Strategies BSE Pathways Involving
Downer Cattle and Dead Stock of Cattle and Other Species
(TSS SUBMISSION)

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/messages/9912358.html

Re: Docket No. 01-068-1 TSS SUBMISSION --
(200,000 USA DOWNERS ANNUALLY)

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/messages/9912360.html

# Docket No. 02N-0273  Substances Prohibited From Use In Animal Food Or
Feed (TSS SUBMISSION) - TSS 1/18/03 (0)

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/messages/9912338.html

TSS


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