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China in Bid to Stave off Mad Cow Disease
China is taking preventive measures to prevent the entry of mad cow disease into the country, according to a joint notice issued by the Ministry of Health and the State Administration for Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Tuesday.
From now on, China will prohibit direct and indirect import and trading of food made from cow meat, carcasses and entrails from countries plagued by the contagious disease. Dairy products are exempted from the list.
The list of banned products includes cattle brain, spinal cord, eye, meat, bone, bowels, placenta, as well as foods made from the above mentioned materials, such as hamburger and canned beef.
The notice orders all importers and traders of the above- mentioned products to immediately stop related processing and trading activities, retract and destroy all sold commodities, and make timely reports to local departments concerned.
The Ministry of Health also called on public health departments at various levels to publicize the knowledge on the disease and provide correct information for consumers.
Mad cow disease was first found in Britain in 1985 and may cause a similar ailment in humans known as Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.
According to a report released by China's Ministry of Agriculture on February 14, cattle in China are mostly fed with straw and soybean meal in farming areas so they do not have access to meat and bone meal (MBM) that is linked to the spread of the disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) .
Besides, animal entrails are commonly used in Chinese dishes and their prices are sometimes higher than meat. For this reason there is not enough offal to be processed into animal feed, said the report.
A nationwide cattle investigation was launched in early 2000 and a survey on imported cattle and their descendants did not find any BSE cases.
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