| WASHINGTON, March
15, 2004—Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman today announced
details for an expanded surveillance effort for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(BSE) in the United States.
“We are committed to ensuring that a robust U.S. surveillance
program continues in this country,” said Veneman. “This one-time
extensive surveillance plan reflects the recommendation of the international
scientific review panel.”
On Dec. 30, Veneman announced that an international scientific review
panel would review the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s investigation
into the BSE find in Washington State and provide recommendations for
future actions. Last month, this panel, operating as a subcommittee of
the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry
Diseases, recommended a one-year enhanced surveillance program targeting
cattle from the populations considered at highest risk for the disease,
as well as a random sampling of animals from the aged cattle population.
The panel also complimented USDA on its investigative efforts as well
as commented that the removal of specified risk materials from the food
supply was the single most important action USDA took to protect public
health.
USDA’s BSE surveillance program historically has been focused
on the cattle populations where it is most likely to be found, including
those condemned at slaughter because of signs of central nervous system
disorders, non-ambulatory cattle and those that die on farms. In FY 2004,
USDA sampled 20,543 animals—a sample size designed to detect the
disease if it occurred in one animal per million adult cattle with a 95
percent confidence level, which is 47 times the international standard
for low-risk countries.
Veneman said that $70 million will be transferred from the USDA Commodity
Credit Corporation to fund the enhanced program with the goal to test
as many cattle as possible in the high-risk population as well as to test
a sampling of the normal, aged cattle population over a 12 to 18 month
time frame.
The enhanced surveillance plan incorporates recommendations from the
international scientific review panel and the Harvard Center for Risk
Analysis; both have reviewed and support the plan.
In addition, USDA is appreciative of the advice, assistance and analyses
provided by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, House and Senate
Appropriations Committees and the House Government Reform Committees in
developing this robust, aggressive surveillance plan.
The primary focus of USDA’s enhanced surveillance effort will
continue to be the highest risk populations for the disease, but USDA
will greatly increase the number of target animals surveyed and will include
a random sampling of apparently normal, aged animals. USDA will build
on previous cooperative efforts with renderers and others to obtain samples
from the targeted high-risk populations, which are banned from the human
food supply.
Under the enhanced program, using statistically geographic modeling,
sampling some 268,000 animals would allow for the detection of BSE at
a rate of 1 positive in 10 million adult cattle with a 99 percent confidence
level. In other words, the enhanced program could detect BSE even if there
were only five positive animals in the entire country. Sampling some 201,000
animals would allow for the detection of BSE at the same rate at a 95
percent confidence level.
The sampling of apparently normal animals will come from the 40 U.S.
slaughter plants that handle 86 percent of the aged cattle processed for
human consumption each year in the United States. The carcasses from these
animals will be held and not allowed to enter the human food chain until
test results show the samples are negative for BSE.
USDA will begin immediately to prepare for the increased testing, with
the anticipation that the program will be ready to be fully implemented
June 1, 2004. In the meantime, BSE testing will continue at the current
rate, which is based on a plan to test 40,000 animals in FY 2004. Testing
will be conducted through USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory
in Ames, Iowa, and a network of laboratories around the country.
USDA is also working to approve rapid tests for use in the testing
program. USDA will help defray costs incurred by industries participating
in the surveillance program for such items as transportation, disposal
and storage, and carcasses being tested.
Detailed information on the surveillance plan can be found at BSE Surveillance Plan.
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