EHA Group Food Safety and Epidemiology Blog

California Cow with BSE (Mad Cow Disease) Does Not Pose a Threat to the Food Supply

On April 24th, 2012, it was announced that the fourth U. S. cow tested positive for BSE. In truth, the first U. S. cow, which was imported from Canada, had “typical” BSE, which was identified in the United Kingdom and has been present in both Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent in Canada.

The two previous U. S. cattle were actually atypical, as was the one identified this week. Although scientifically less is known about the etiology or causation of atypical BSE, what is known is it is not acquired the same way as the typical BSE (from consuming infected feed containing the brain or other Specified Risk Materials from an infected animal), nor does it seem to present the same danger, even if consumed.

No animal slaughtered in the United States for human or animal feed can contain Specified Risk Material, which is where the prion (not bacteria or virus) can be found. This includes the brain, the tonsils, and parts of the intestine, as well as the spinal cord. This fourth cow from California was found during the routine surveillance of USDA, APHIS (Animal Plant and Health Service).

This cow was presented for slaughter in an ambulatory fashion (not a “downer”) and was to be incorporated in pet food, but again, none of the Specified Risk Materials would have been included in the pet foods. There is no evidence that non-ruminant animals actually get BSE; however, there are quite a few ruminants that humans consume other than cattle - including buffalo, sheep, goat, and elk.

The human form of BSE is new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which is highly and actively looked for in the United States through a variety of modalities, including biological materials sent to the National Prion Disease Surveillance Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Since they started actively looking for vCJD, which would have been from cow, three cases in the United States were identified with none having their exposure to U. S. beef. Their risk factors were two from the United Kingdom and one from Saudi Arabia, who most likely had exposure in the UK and/or the EU.

The U. S. has worked very hard to try to assure not only it’s citizens, but also its trading partners around the world, that due to excellent decision making in the 1980’s with regard to the importation of cattle and bone meal, as well as later on in the discontinuation of feeding any of the Specified Risk Materials to cattle or other food animals and embarking on an intensive surveillance program, that the United States, in effect, is free from BSE and should not be worrisome to the American consumer nor our trading partners around the world.

The bottom line is that this cow does not pose a food safety issue. One can only hope that the news media will not make more out of this and, if they want to increase food safety awareness and prevent foodborne diseases, they will do stories on cooking ground beef to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, poultry to 165 degrees Fahrenheit and don’t cross-contaminate between raw and ready-to-eat burgers or poultry and, of course, frequent handwashing.

Pink Slime Poses no Food Safety Risk

Pink slime has become a pejorative word for some ground beef mixes that have included taking beef trimmings, often times that are very close to the bone, and treated with ammonia or citric acid to create a leaner and more cost-effective component of some ground beef. 

There has never been a question, in terms of food safety, yet due to the media and consumer fire storm that has erupted due to the psychological “yuck” factor, many retailers, both at the food service and supermarket levels, have retreated from using it, which according to the American Meat Institute, will require an additional 1.5 million cattle to be slaughtered to make up the difference in harvesting this otherwise wholesome protein from already slaughtered animals. 

The process that they use to recover the additional lean meat is that they heat the meat on the bone, or trimmings, to approximately 100 degrees, spin them in a centrifugal spinner, and the lean beef easily separates from the fat.  It is then treated with ammonium hydroxide or citric acid as an intervention to prevent bacterial problems from organisms such as Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7. 

The important bottom line with this “pink slime” debacle, is that there is no food safety risk and, in fact, this is a safe product and uses as much of our resource of cattle as possible.  There is no question that there definitely can be a “yuck” factor, especially when styled the way it has in both the media, and especially the social media. 

Clearly, when you have the Secretary of Agriculture and the consumer advocate group, Center for Science, in the public interest on the same page and there has been no evidence of any illness, there is no food safety issue. 

The USDA’s deputy secretary for food safety, Dr. Elizabeth Hagen, states that the real issue is transparency in labeling, which clearly can be easily corrected and, again, it is always the consumer who has the ultimate right to purchase or not for their consumption.