By Sally Schuff
Feedstuffs Washington Editor



GREENSBORO, N.C. — Results of
the expanded U.S. Surveillance program for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – which so far have detected no new cases in more than 92,000 tests – appear to be giving the Food & Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) some breathing room on issuing its proposed new feed regulations.
      On July 14, FDA published an advanced notice of public rulemaking asking for comments on three additional BSE safeguards aimed at preventing any cross contamination of cattle feed with potentially infected ruminant protein.
      That action came six weeks after the U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture launched

its expanded BSE testing program, which has tested 92,371 animals considered to be the most probable candidates for the disease.
      So far, the program is continuing at a current rate of 6,000 tests a week without detecting a single new case of the disease. To date, only one U.S. animal – a six-year-old Holstein cow that was born in Canada –has been diagnosed with the disease. That case was detected Dec. 23, 2003.
      While USDA’s testing program aims to continue for at least another 12 months, the fact that there are no new cases is beginning to beg the question: If the risk of infectivity remains so low, how much additional regulation makes sense?
      Discussion of the proposed changes to FDA’s 1997 feed rule came up in several sessions held last week during the annual meeting of the U.S. Animal Health Assn. (USAHA) and the American Association of

Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians in Greensboro.
      All of the measures were aimed at preventing any possible contamination of cattle feed with material from a BSE-infected animal, but since the testing program so far has not found any infected animals, FDA has a critical choice.
     “The dilemma FDA faces is what is the appropriate level of risk reduction?” Dr. Dan McChesney, CVM deputy director of regulatory policy, said last week during the meeting.
      McChesney indicated that FDA is “not moving toward banning the feeding of all meat and bone meal.” The current feed rule allows porcine and poultry meal to be fed to ruminants since those species are not known to be infected with BSE.
      If the U.S. were to prohibit feeding mammalian protein,  it  would result  in the