Furthermore, the infectious agent is incredibly resistant to deactivation. Cooking infected meat, or even rendering it at high temperature, does not completely eliminate its infectivity. Animals get TSEs by eating infected animals or parts of infected animals, especially nerve tissues. TSE diseases have now been identified in sheep, pigs, goats, cattle, deer, elk, mink, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, domestic cats, puma, cheetah, eland, kudu, Arabian oryx, myland, marmosets, macaques, chimpanzees and humans. But that is not what the FDA has done.
Ruminants are animals that chew their cuds, including cattle, sheep, goats, deer and elk.
Mink are included in the ban because they can get a TSE similar to mad cow disease. FDA is still allowing the feeding of pigs to other animals, and the feeding of blood and gelatin from rendering plants to all animals. For example, many calves in the U.S. are being raised on a diet of dried blood taken straight from rendering plants. Pigs and chickens are still being fed rendered animal products. There are sound scientific arguments why this policy represents a form of Russian roulette being played with the health of the American public.