# Presentation: 534305

## Teaching WorkshopBovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

- Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR)

## New Requirements for AMR—Beef 

- On January 12, 2004, FSIS published:
- 3 interim final rules with requests for comments  and one notice.
- In response to the December 25, 2003 confirmed positive of BSE in a cow in the U.S.
- One rule added new requirements for AMR.

## Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR)

- AMR systems:
- Enable processors to remove attached skeletal muscle tissue from livestock bones without incorporating significant amounts of bone and bone product into the final meat product.
- When used properly, the product from AMR systems is comparable to meat derived by hand deboning.

## Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR)

- AMR systems
- Use hydraulic pressure to emulate the physical action of hand-held high-speed knives to remove skeletal muscle tissue from bone.
- Application of pressure detaches meat from the bones in a “hard separation” process.

## Harvard Risk Assessment for BSE

- USDA commissioned the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis to conduct a risk assessment for BSE:
- Indicated that the most important means by which low-risk tissue can become contaminated is through the use of AMR systems that can leave spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) in the recovered meat product.

## FSIS 2002 Survey of AMR Products

- For seven months, FSIS collected samples from AMR systems that used beef vertebrae as source material.
- Tested for the presence of spinal cord and DRG.
- Only 12% of plants were able to produce final AMR product with no spinal cord or DRG on a consistent basis.

## Prohibited from Use in AMR

- As of January 12, 2004, meat derived from AMR systems cannot contain the following parts from any livestock:
- Brain
- Spinal cord
- Dorsal root ganglia (DRG)
- Trigeminal ganglia
- Significant amounts of bone solids or marrow

## Prohibited from Use in AMR

- In addition, for cattle 30 months of age and older:
- Skulls and vertebral column bones are prohibited from use in AMR systems.

## New AMR Requirements

- To ensure that AMR systems are not a means of introducing central nervous system (CNS)-type tissue into product labeled as “meat”.
- In addition, FSIS has determined MS(Beef) to be inedible and prohibits it from use as human food.

## Plant Responsibilities – AMR Beef

- In addition to meeting all existing regulatory requirements, plants which produce AMR beef must:
- Reassess their hazard analysis to determine if there is a hazard reasonably likely to occur.
- AMR regulatory changes are likely to affect the hazard analysis.

## Plant Responsibilities – AMR Beef

- Ensure that the AMR production process is in control in order to prevent the introduction of  central nervous system (CNS)-type tissue into product labeled as “meat”.
- Have these control procedures and recordkeeping included in the HACCP plan, Sanitation SOP, or other prerequisite program.

## Plant Responsibilities – AMR Beef

- Maintain records on the entire AMR process control system on a daily basis.
- Previously, recordkeeping requirements applied only to the calcium criteria.
- Make those records available to FSIS inspection program personnel upon request.

## Plant Responsibilities – AMR Beef

- Observe bones entering the AMR system.
- Test product exiting the AMR system.
- Determine how and when the plant will test AMR product for calcium, iron, spinal cord, and DRG.
- May use testing methods which are not as sensitive as the method FSIS uses, but are less expensive.

## AMR from All Livestock

- AMR from livestock other than cattle must also meet the new requirements.
- Only differences:
- There are no Specified Risk Materials (SRMs) for  other livestock.
- HACCP plan does not have to be reassessed, but the program must be documented in writing.

## FSIS Responsibilities

- In addition to present inspection procedures, inspection program personnel will:
- Take samples from plants which produce AMR products, to ensure that prohibited tissues are not in the product.
- Verify plant testing, using validated histological procedures.

## FSIS Responsibilities

- FSIS is developing inspection procedures, and methodology, including those for sampling and testing.

## Enforcement

- If a plant’s AMR system repeatedly fails to produce product free of prohibited materials,  it will not be allowed to produce AMR meat from vertebrae.