American cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease, gaps in the US defense against the disease that the Bush administration promised almost 18 months ago to close.
"Once the cameras were turned off, and the media coverage dissipated, then it's been business as usual: no real reform, just keep feeding slaughterhouse waste," said John Stauber, an activist and co-author of Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?
"The entire US policy is designed to protect the livestock industry's access to slaughterhouse waste as cheap feed," he said.
The government is now investigating another possible case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, in the US.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) promised to tighten feed rules shortly after the first case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the US, in a Washington state cow in December 2003.
"Today we are bolstering our BSE firewalls to protect the public," Mark McClellan, then-FDA commissioner, said on Jan. 26 last year.
The FDA said it would ban blood, poultry litter and restaurant plate waste from cattle feed and require feed mills to use separate equipment to make cattle feed. Chicken litter is ground cover for the birds that absorbs manure, spilled feed and feathers.
However, last July, the FDA scrapped the restrictions. McClellan's replacement, Lester Crawford, said an international team of experts assembled by the Agriculture Department was recommending even stronger rules, and the FDA would produce new restrictions in line with those recommendations.
Today, the FDA still has not done what it promised to do. The agency declined interviews, saying in a statement only that no timeline exists for new restrictions.
"It's just a lot of talk," said Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat, a senior House Democrat on food and farm issues.
"It's a lot of talk, a lot of press releases, and no action," she said.
Ground-up cattle remains left over from slaughtering operations were used as protein in cattle feed until 1997, when an outbreak of mad cow cases in Britain prompted the US to order the feed industry to quit doing it.
Unlike Britain, however, the US ban has exceptions. For example, it's legal to put ground-up cattle remains in chicken feed. Feed that spills from cages mixes with chicken waste on the ground, then is swept up for use in cattle feed.
Scientists believe the BSE protein will survive the feed-making process and may even survive the trip through a chicken's gut.
That amounts to the legal feeding of some cattle protein back to cattle, said Linda Detwiler, a former Agriculture Department veterinarian who worked on mad cow disease for several years.
"I would stipulate it's probably not a real common thing, and the amounts are pretty small,"she said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique