![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.4375in" height="1.4416666666666667in"}

Release No. 0450.03

**of**

**Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman**

**Announces Additional Protection Measures to Guard Against BSE**

#  Washington D. C. -- December 30, 2003 

**SEC. ANN VENEMAN** (USDA): Good afternoon, and thank you all for being
here with us once again today. I want to acknowledge some of the members
of our team who are here with us today. In the front row are Dr. Elsa
Murano, our under secretary for food safety here at USDA. Bill Hawks,
who\'s our under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs. Keith
Collins, who\'s our chief economist. And I want to give a special thanks
to those who have been providing you with the regular briefings and the
technical briefings that the media has been getting every day. And I
think their information has been very helpful and vital.

Dr. Ron DeHaven has been a part of that. He\'s become someone you see
often, our chief veterinarian here at USDA; along with Dr. Ken Petersen
of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, and Dr. Sundlof from FDA who
is not here with us today, but the deputy director of FDA, Dr. Les
Crawford, is here. The deputy commissioner, Dr. Crawford, is here with
us today.

Also joining the technical briefing today will be Dr. Dan Engeljohn of
the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

I\'m going to make an opening statement this afternoon, and after that
time there\'s going to be a short break. They\'re going to reset the
stage for the regular technical briefing with our experts that will
allow them to answer specific technical questions and update you on the
investigation itself.

At the very beginning of that briefing, the technical briefing, Dr.
Crawford will provide a presentation on actions by the FDA that are
related to the announcements that we\'re making today.

It was just one week ago today that I stood here before you hours after
learning of a single presumptive positive case of BSE, or what we call
'Mad Cow Disease,' in Washington state, and I stood here to make that
announcement. In that short period of time, exhaustive efforts have been
made, countless hours have been spent, to investigate this finding.

My thanks to everyone who has assisted in these efforts including our
partners at the federal, state and industry and international level
especially all of the hosts \-- and many did this \-- they altered their
holiday plans significantly to ensure our swift and effective response
to this incident.

While this investigation is still in its early phases we\'ve made a lot
of progress in both the trace-back and the trace-forward from the
indexed cow. Our investigative team on the ground, working with the
state of Washington and Canadian authorities, has done an outstanding
job. I especially want to thank Canadian officials for their excellent
cooperation throughout this process.

As our technical experts have informed you, our main line of inquiry
indicates that the cow slaughtered in Washington state and found to have
BSE may have been born in Canada. We know that higher risk materials
from the animal did not\--did not\--enter the food chain. Recalls of
meat and product from this cow and others slaughtered at the same
facility on the same day have been implemented, and we continue to be
guided by an abundance of caution.

But I will stress again that our food supply and the public health
remain safe.

Judging by recent market actions, consumer confidence and demand for
beef are still relatively strong. We have initiated discussions with our
trading partners which are ongoing to assure them of the actions that we
are taking, and continue to take, to investigate this finding. Our USDA
trade team has been in Tokyo and South Korea. Our goal is to see trade
resume as quickly as possible.

We are also making information available to the public as soon as it
becomes known to us. As you know, we have been updating on a daily basis
and our updates are virtually up to the minute. They are webcast across
the country and around the world and our materials are posted on our
USDA website at www.usda.gov.

Sometimes we will tell you that this information is in a preliminary
form, but we make it available quickly in the public interest.

For more than a decade the United States has had in place an aggressive
surveillance detection and response program for BSE. That program has
evolved over time as our understanding of BSE has changed. But sound
science continues to be our guide.

We have tested about 20,000 head of cattle for BSE in each of the last
two years \-- 47 times the recommended international standard. Since
1989 USDA has banned imports of live ruminants and most ruminant product
from the United Kingdom and other countries having BSE. In 1997 the FDA
prohibited the use of most mammalian protein in the manufacture of
animal feed intended for cattle and other ruminants.

I would note, as Dr. DeHaven as done previously, that the indexed cow
appears to have been born before the feed ban was in place. And we are
now awaiting the results of a DNA test to obtain positive identification
on this animal.

Currently in the United States every animal going to slaughter is
inspected by a USDA veterinarian for attributes such as ability to walk
and central nervous system impairment. An independent analysis of our
systems by Harvard University in the years 2001 and then again this year
in 2003 shows that the risk of BSE spreading in the U.S. is extremely
low, and possible spread would have been reversed by the controls that
we have already put in place.

While we are confident that the United States has safeguards and
firewalls needed to protect our food supply and public health as well as
our animal health, today I am announcing steps we are taking to further
protect our system.

In most instances these actions are the results of work that was
underway long before the discovery last week in Washington state and
prior to the announcement of BSE last May in Alberta, Canada.

First, effective immediately USDA will ban all downer cattle from the
human food chain. We will also continue an aggressive surveillance
program for BSE. However, these animals tested for BSE will no longer be
marked \"inspected and passed\" until there is confirmation that they
have tested negative for BSE. In other words, any animal tested under
our surveillance program, that will continue, will be held until the
test results are known.

Next, in order to further prevent human exposure to high-risk tissues
and protect public health, USDA will implement new regulations. These
actions are consistent with those taken by Canada following the BSE case
discovered there in May of this year. These regulations deal with
specified risk materials or SRMs.

Scientific studies have indicated that specific tissues from cattle of
certain ages can harbor prions believed to cause BSE. Therefore, we are
declaring those high-risk tissues primarily contained in the head and
spinal column in cattle 30 months or older to be unfit for human
consumption, and we are prohibiting their presence in human food.

In addition, for all cattle the small intestines will also be considered
unfit for human consumption and prohibited from inclusion in human food.

Tonsils will remain prohibited from the human food chain.

Another area we are addressing in the regulations will provide
additional process controls for facilities that use a process called
advanced meat recovery, or AMR systems. AMR is a technical process that
enables processors to remove smaller amounts of meat from carcasses
without breaking bones. This rule will codify an existing USDA policy
that prohibits the presence of spinal cord tissue in beef obtained
through the AMR process.

USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service currently verifies the presence
of spinal cord tissue through testing of the product. The new AMR rule
will ensure that spinal cord tissue and another central nervous system
tissue known as dorsal root ganglia are not present in the AMR product.

We will also specify that the skull cannot be used in AMR systems. These
new regulations will become effective immediately on publication, which
will take place as soon as possible.

In addition, FSIS is issuing a regulation to prohibit air injection
stunning of cattle. This will further strengthen our systems by
decreasing the risk of any brain material becoming dislodged during the
slaughter of an animal.

USDA is also working to take the next steps toward implementation of a
verifiable system of national animal identification. This is a process
that has been underway for more than a year and a half. USDA has led an
effort among partners at the federal and state levels, along with
industry, which has resulted in the adoption of standards for a
nationwide animal ID system. Currently many animals can be identified
through some system of animal ID. In fact, the cow in question was
subject to an animal ID system which has facilitated our investigation
in this case over the past week.

Such a system will help enhance the speed and accuracy of our response
to disease outbreaks across many different animal species. With the
standards now in place, I have asked USDA\'s chief information officer
to make it his top priority to work with the committee that\'s working
on this issue to develop the technology architecture necessary to
implement an effective and verifiable system throughout the United
States.

Our goals are to achieve uniformity, consistency, and efficiency across
the national system.

And finally today, I am announcing the appointment of an international
panel of scientific experts to provide an objective review of our
response actions and areas for potential enhancement. This team will
function almost identically to the panel that lent expertise to Canada
after the May 20 discovery of BSE in Alberta.

In fact, we anticipate that the team members from the Canada incident
will also serve on the panel that we are announcing today.

It is important that USDA seek credible, objective scientists from
countries that have had experience with BSE in implementing the most
effective response possible.

The actions that we\'re taking today are steps to enact additional
safeguards to protect the public health and maintain the confidence of
consumers, industry, and our trading partners in our already strong food
safety and protection systems. Along with our scientific review panel we
will continue to look at other potential actions that may be
appropriate. USDA remains committed to taking every appropriate step
along with our partners to protect our food supply and the well-being of
American agriculture.

I want to again thank you all for being here today, and I will take a
few questions, and then we will follow with our experts.

**OPERATOR:** We will be using microphones so please wait for your
microphone, state your name and affiliation please.

**DAN GOLDSTEIN:** Dan Goldstein, Bloomberg News.

The list of safeguards that you\'re enacting today, were these in
response to the USDA\'s trade mission to Japan, and what do you imagine
the reaction is going to be to Japan and some other trade partners who
have banned about 3.6 billion worth of beef subsequent to this event?
What\'s their, going to be the reaction to this?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** Well, as I said in my opening remarks, these actions
that we are announcing today are actions that we have been considering
particularly since the case of BSE in Canada earlier this year.
Certainly we are very concerned about the reaction of our trade
partners. As you know we dispatched a team on Saturday which arrived on
Sunday to meet with our trading partners in Tokyo. They went on to Korea
and had meetings today.

These actions are not being taken in response just to our trading
partners certainly, but they are being taken because we believe that
given the circumstances that we are now in \-- that is, we are a country
with one positive case of BSE \-- that we should take these actions that
are appropriate and consistent with actions that other countries have
taken and many of which are consistent with what the international
organization recommends for a country with a find of BSE.

In particularly, you will note that I announced that the ban on
specified risk materials \-- that prohibition will match the one that
was put in place by Canada, and therefore we will have a consistency of
standard in that regard.

Randy?

**RANDY FABI:** Randy Fabi, Reuters.

Are downer cattle allowed to be rendered now? Are they still going to be
allowed to be used as pet food? And also with these new regulations do
you see beef prices rising for consumers?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** I don\'t expect an increase in the price to consumers.
The number of cattle that enter into the food supply as downer animals
currently is a very small number when compared to the universe of cattle
that we slaughter in this country. We slaughter somewhere in excess of
35 million head a year, and it\'s estimated that the downer cattle were
in the range of 150,000 to 200,000. So as you can see, that\'s a very
small percentage.

So I would not anticipate an economic impact, but I would invite you to
ask that question of Dr. Collins later on this afternoon as well.

So I don\'t anticipate a market response to this in terms of increase in
consumer prices because I think that the number is a very small number.

**RANDY FABI:** In rendering?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** On rendering, I think Dr. Crawford will be addressing
that in his remarks because as you know the product that goes into pet
food is under the regulatory jurisdiction of the Food and Drug
Administration as opposed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Yes, sir, right here.

**SETH BORENSTEIN:** Seth Borenstein, Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Since the tests on downers were a major part of your surveillance
system, what\'s left with the surveillance in terms of sick animals and
injured animals on the farm, and what are you going to do in terms of
surveillance of healthy animals for BSE?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** Well, we are going to continue an aggressive
surveillance program. We are going to look at all of the high-risk
areas. Particularly we know that older animals are higher risk, any
animals that exhibit any kind of unusual symptoms of any kind. But we
will be identifying the whole range of animals that may be the higher
risk animals.

And as I said, we\'re going to continue a very aggressive surveillance
program and increase our surveillance considerably over what it\'s been
in the last couple of years.

**MOLLY HOOPER:** Molly Hooper, Fox News Channel.

How will this affect the beef industry? How much money will this cost
cattle ranchers and, you know, etcetera, etcetera? How much will this
cost them? How much will it cost the USDA?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** Well, it is too preliminary at this point to determine
what kind of cost will cost the USDA in terms of surveillance, and so
forth. There will be some additional cost. We had already anticipated
increases in our surveillance partially because of the find in Canada.
And so there are additional increases associated with that. We\'re going
to be looking at other costs in the system, but I don\'t anticipate that
the change in the specified risk materials, the ban on downer animals in
the food system, are going to cost USDA significant amounts of
money\--or for that matter the industry\--significant amounts of money
for the very reason that I just stated\--that this involves a very small
number of animals in the scheme of things.

But again, I would invite you to address some of these questions
directly to Dr. Collins during the technical briefing because I think
that he can give you an overall economic review of the industry and
potential economic impacts.

Yes, ma\'am.

**GWEN ADRON** : Gwen Adron, ABC News.

Have you made any decisions yet about reductions of the quarantined
herds in Washington state?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** We are still reviewing those herds as part of the
investigation. At this time, there are two herds that remain under
quarantine. One is the dairy itself where the indexed animal came from
initially, and the other is the facility where the calf from this cow
went. And both of those remain under quarantine, and we are still
reviewing in the case of the dairy all of the various records \-- the
cattle, looking at which other ones may have come in in the same herd
from Canada, and we want to do all of the investigation in that regard.
We are looking at how we\'re going to deal with the group that has the
calves in it as well, but no decisions have yet finally been made on
that.

Yes, sir, in the back.

**TOM DOGGETT:** Tom Doggett, Reuters.

Was President Bush briefed on these changes you\'re making, and what was
his reaction to them?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** I\'ve had regular briefings with the President and
with senior members in the White House, and they are fully aware of the
actions that we\'re taking today.

Bill?

**BILL THOMSON**: Bill Thomson, Dow Jones.

Madam Secretary, I don\'t understand how you will continue the
surveillance if downer cattle aren\'t brought to the slaughterhouse now.
Congress considered a measure such as you\'re announcing today, and one
of the main objections by other congressmen\--and the reason it failed
is because they said, 'Now we won\'t be able to find out whether or not
there\'s BSE.'

Are you worried that people are going to bury downer cattle on the
farms? APHIS has for awhile wanted to go on to farms to check downer
cattle. Are these some of the possibilities?

**SEC. VENEMAN:** I think they\'re all possibilities. I mean, obviously
we\'re going to be looking at other ways to test downer cattle besides
at the slaughter plant, because if they\'re not coming into a slaughter
plant. Certainly rendering plants are one option, and we\'re going to be
discussing those options closely with FDA, and I think we will look at a
whole variety of actions, and whether or not that involves on-farm is
undetermined at this point.

Again, I would remind all of you that we are only one week into this
situation. We\'re announcing some fairly aggressive actions today. We
think they\'re appropriate actions, but there will be follow-up measures
that we will be assessing as we go forward. I can tell you that we have
our staff very, very engaged at every level in all of the discussions,
along with FDA, and we are looking at all the different ramifications of
things that we decide to do, including the kinds of things that you\'re
raising. But I would just reiterate that we will continue to have an
aggressive surveillance program, and it will be based on high-risk
animals. And again, that is largely associated with an animal\'s age as
well as other factors.

Thank you all very much. We will now have about a five-minute break and
you all will have the opportunity to talk with our technical group.

\#