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Sunday Morning News

Government Ruling Out Possibility of Mad Cow Disease in Texas Heard

Aired January 28, 2001 - 9:14 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there's new concern about the possibility of mad cow disease in this country, and it comes from a Texas feed lot where cattle may have accidentally been fed a mixture of grain and bone meal made from other cattle.

Now, that violates FDA rules. The agency says the cattle are not in quarantine but are being isolated while inspectors determine if mad cow safeguards have been violated.

To date, we emphasize, no cases of mad cow disease have been confirmed in the U.S.

But joining us from Washington now is Gary Weber, executive director of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Good morning, Gary.

GARY WEBER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CATTLEMEN'S BEEF ASSOCIATION: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Why don't we begin about -- talking about our confidence? And should this situation shake our confidence in the safety of U.S. beef?

WEBER: No, it shouldn't. For more than 10 years, the U.S. government and the cattle industry supporting them have had a rigid set of methods in place to prevent, number one, the introduction of mad cow disease, which is a foreign animal disease, it's in the United Kingdom and in Europe. That's the most important part of this, is to prevent the introduction of the agent that causes it.

The feed ban that's in place here is another preventative layer, just in case anything slips by those preventative mechanisms preventing imports.

And so the situation in Texas is one where a company discovered that a small amount of meat and bone meal may have been put in a feed supplement. And they called the FDA and said, We may have done this, and the FDA has gone down there, taken samples, and is analyzing it to see if there is, indeed, any prohibited material there.

PHILLIPS: And Gary, you talk about preventative measures. Before beef is on our table, there is an inspection process, the USDA definitely inspects to detect diseased cattle when approving the meat. Can something like this be detected while going through that inspection process? Can they detect diseased meat, or cattle, rather?

WEBER: Well, it's a multiple level of hurdles. For instance, every single animal that goes to slaughter in the United States is inspected to see if it's healthy before it even goes into the plant. And it's at that point that if any of the symptoms, like BSE, are identified, the neurologic symptoms, those animals are not allowed in the plant.

And if an animal is identified in the United States with any symptom like that, that animal is submitted for diagnostic purposes to see if we have any evidence of a disease. To this date, we have tested over 12,000 head of cattle in the United States that have any kind of symptoms, and we've never found any evidence that there was BSE here.

And we use the most sophisticated tests in the world to determine if it was present.

PHILLIPS: So what are the chances this could happen again, what happened in Texas?

WEBER: Well, the feed ban is our second level of protection. The most important one is keeping the agent out of the United States. And the FDA is working very hard to ensure 100 percent compliance, and that's our goal too, and the entire industry. We all support this, we're all committed to making sure, in the new Bush administration, that this is a top priority, and that the FDA has the resources it needs to ensure 100 percent compliance with the feed regulations.

PHILLIPS: So Gary, from the finest steaks to a fast food burger, right now you're telling us we're safe.

WEBER: We're safe, and we've got multiple levels of protection, from USDA, from FDA, and we're committed to making sure that we continue to have the safest, highest quality beef in the world.

PHILLIPS: Gary Weber, executive director of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, thanks again.

WEBER: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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