News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – To help consumers figure out whether they have bought potentially contaminated food, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today it will name retail stores that received meat and poultry products involved in high-risk product recalls.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced interim measures to verify and assess humane handling procedures at federally inspected slaughtering facilities as it continues investigating charges of animal cruelty involving "downer" cattle at a California company.

(CIDRAP News) – A California meatpacking company has issued the largest meat recall in US history—143.4 million pounds—after revelations that the firm mistreated cattle and violated the federal ban on putting disabled or "downer" cattle into the human food supply.

(CIDRAP News) – Canada broadened its safeguards against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, yesterday by banning the use of cattle brains, spinal cords, and certain other body parts from all animal feeds, pet foods, and fertilizer.

(CIDRAP News) – After close to 2 years of expanded testing, the US government is estimating that there are between four and seven cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) among the nation's 42 million adult cattle.

"The data shows that the prevalence of BSE in the United States is extraordinarily low," US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Mike Johanns said at a teleconference this morning.

(CIDRAP News) – Japan has again banned American beef following the discovery last week of cattle spine material in an imported shipment, a violation of the recent bilateral agreement designed to keep beef tainted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) out of Japan.

(CIDRAP News) – Meat companies are again free to use most of the small intestine of cattle to make sausage casings, following a change in a federal rule intended to protect people from exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and several beef industry officials at a St. Paul meeting yesterday made the case for resuming importation of live Canadian cattle, which have been banned since Canada's first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) turned up in May 2003.