Latest on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

APHIS | Hot Issues: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

A report was released on the 4th (yesterday) Risk Analysis: BSE Risk from Importation of Designated Ruminants and Ruminant Products
from Canada into the United States
With an important discussion of policy decisions regarding meat processing and handling of what they term "specified risk materials" (biological matter) that is now prohibited from the human food supply. The whole thing gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Screening for SRMs and verification of their absence in products has been identified as an issue that should be addressed. Therefore, in March 2003, FSIS began a routine regulatory sampling program for beef produced from AMR systems to ensure that spinal cord tissue is not present in the product. In the new interim rule, establishments must ensure process control through verification testing to ensure that neither spinal cord nor dorsal root ganglia is present in the product.