Mad Cow Disease and Pet Food
Recently the Salt Lake Tribune published an article warning livestock owners not to feed “cheap pet food to livestock”. “Utah’s state veterinarian is warning ranchers to avoid giving inexpensive pet food to their herds. Earl Rogers says most pet food has ingredients that could help spread an illness in livestock called BSE. It’s against state and federal law to give it to cattle.” BSE is mad cow disease.
Pet food manufacturers deny using any risk meat materials in pet food, however this article proves otherwise. Pet food ingredients ‘meat and bone meal’, ‘meat meal’, ‘animal digest’, and ”by-products’ (in any variation) by their legal definition can contain risk meat material that is rejected for use in human foods.
At USDA meat processing facilities, cattle just entering the plant are put into a holding pen for a 24 hour mandatory holding period. Any animal that goes ‘down’ - meaning they cannot stand - are not allowed to be processed into human food. The reason is that downed animals are a known risk for BSE - mad cow disease. Again, the intention of not processing a downed animal into human food is to prevent spreading mad cow to humans. Unfortunately, these risk animals are not destroyed, they are processed into pet food.
This article proves that State Veterinarians are well aware of the possibility of spreading BSE to cattle from eating pet food - they are well aware that pets are eating potentially BSE contaminated meats. The disease has already crossed species to cats and minks around the world. The only suggestion I have for you is to avoid any pet foods and pet treats using meat and bone meal, meat meal, animal digest, and by-products.
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