The Food and Drug Administration issued a rule Thursday finalizing three previous interim rules regarding BSE. The rules were designed to further reduce the possible risk of the disease in human food, by reducing human exposure to certain cattle material that could potentially contain the BSE agent. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard is pleased with the agency decision.
The risk of human exposure to BSE is negligible, due to the measures in place in the U.S. to prevent the disease. However, he says FDA needs to make some other changes to the rule to protect the cattle herd by restricting imports from countries like Europe where they may have the disease.
Bullard says there also needs to be more protections from the possible risk of product getting into the U.S. from developing countries with BSE.
FDA’s final rule defines prohibited cattle materials and prohibits their use in human food, dietary supplements and cosmetics and addresses the potential risk of BSE.
