Mad Cow Fears Prompt FDA Feed Maker Warnings

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 12 -- Hundreds of animal feed producers are violating rules intended to keep mad cow disease out of the United States, prompting the government to warn on Thursday that companies must shape up or expect shutdowns, even prosecution.

The food supply remains safe despite the violations because no cases of madcow disease have been found in U.S. cattle, the Food and Drug Administrationsaid.

But the violations are serious because if the deadly brain disease doessneak into the country, companies that don't follow the FDA's rules couldspread it through animal feed.

So the FDA warned that continued violations will prompt seizures of feed,company shutdowns, even prosecution. Many companies already have receivedwarning letters, and some feed has been recalled.

"Today's food is safe," because slaughterhouse inspections have found nosuspicion of mad cow disease, FDA veterinary chief Dr. Stephen Sundlof saidThursday.

But Europe's mad-cow crisis "is not a result of them not having adequateregulations in place — it was a problem of enforcement. And we don't wantto end up like that," Sundlof added, promising more intense inspections.

FDA Warily Watching Europe

The report comes a week before the FDA, warily watching Europe's mad cowsituation, is scheduled to debate strengthening blood-donation regulationsmeant to keep a human version of the disease from ever striking here.

Fear over mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, arose in themid-1990s when Britain discovered a new version of the humanCreutzfeldt-Jakob disease apparently was caused by eating infected beef.About 80 people have died of the new CJD disease in Britain since then, andnow France, Germany and other European countries are grappling with infectedlivestock.

Animals get the disease by eating the tissue of other infected animals, andBritish cows are thought first to have been infected by eating feed madefrom sheep harboring a similar illness.

So the livestock industry in 1996 voluntarily banned sheep and certain otheranimal parts from U.S. feed. The next year, the FDA formally banned anyproteins from cows, sheep, goats, deer or elk — animals that get similarbrain-wasting diseases — from feed for cows, sheep or goats. Poultry orpigs can still eat those proteins, but feed must be labeled "do not feed tocows or other ruminants" and companies must have systems to preventaccidentally mixing up the feeds.