Banned materials found in some cattle feed
10 per cent had ruminant materials

Chad Skelton
Vancouver Sun

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Tests conducted by the federal government on cattle feed found that 10 per cent of the feed sampled may have contained banned ruminant materials -- the primary way in which mad cow disease is spread.

The test results were released publicly Wednesday afternoon by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The existence of the tests and some of the initial results were first reported in December by The Vancouver Sun, based on internal CFIA memos obtained through the Access to Information Act.

In 1997, to help prevent the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Canada enacted a ban on feeding ruminant remains to other ruminants.

However, cattle can still be fed to pigs and chickens, and pigs and chickens can be fed to cattle.

According to the CFIA report, 110 samples of cattle feed and feed ingredients labelled as vegetable-only were tested by the agency in early 2004.

Of those, 67 (60.9 per cent) contained undeclared animal materials.

However, because the tests were conducted by looking at samples under a microscope, the agency was unable to determine if the animal material was banned ruminant remains or not.

To help determine if the ban had been violated, the agency reviewed past inspection reports for feed mills. (It was unable to do that for samples that were imported.)

Of the remainder, the review found that 22 of the samples came from establishments that did not use ruminant materials at all -- making a ban violation unlikely.

Another 16 samples came from feed mills where contamination could have occurred -- such as those that used ruminant remains in the production of feed for pigs or chickens.

But, according to the CFIA report, those feed samples likely did not contain ruminant material because "all appropriate control procedures were being strictly adhered to."

However, the report states that, for 11 of the samples, the agency "could not rule out the possibility that some [likely an incidental level of] prohibited material may have been among the animal tissues detected in the laboratory."

Four of those samples came from a mill that has since shutdown. But seven came from six mills still in operation.

The report states the agency conducted follow-up visits to ensure those six mills improved procedures, such as by doing a better job of cleaning equipment between feed batches.

The agency said it is confident those mills are now complying with the ban.

cskelton@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2005