Downed Animals & the Food Safety Protection Act
- There has been a great deal of controversy over the use of downed animals for food partly because, until 2010, federal laws did not address the humane slaughter of sick, injured or dying cattle. Meat from these animals is referred to as "Four-D," signifying that the animal was either dead, diseased, disabled or dying before being slaughtered. Farm animal advocacy group Farm Sanctuary has been heavily involved in pushing for stronger laws for the humane treatment of downed animals because they believe that these animals suffer unnecessarily.
Downed animal meat may be responsible for outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease, also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), which has infected hundreds of thousands of people since it was first identified in 1986. BSE may be fatal to both cows and humans. - In December 2009, U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman and 48 co-sponsors introduced the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act. This legislation provides that "nonambulatory cattle in interstate and foreign commerce be immediately and humanely euthanized when such cattle become nonambulatory." In other words, under the legislation, animals that could no longer walk would have to be humanely put to sleep. The bill would require slaughterhouses to humanely euthanize cattle that are dying, lame or sick as soon as they realize that the animal is "downed."
The Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act was sent in December 2009 to the House Agriculture Committee, where it is scheduled to remain until the 2011 legislative session. - The Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act was written to amend existing legislation that addressed the same issue. Enacted in 1958, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act required that the Agriculture Department publicize regulations providing for the "humane treatment, handling, and disposition of nonambulatory cattle." Rep. Ackerman's bill expanded on that legislation to make sure that downed animals would be treated with compassion while still conscious. It further required that downed animals, which are frequently dragged to the slaughterhouse by a tractor because they are too weak or lame to make it under their own power, not be moved until they are deemed unconscious.
- Rep. Ackerman's bill required that the Department of Agriculture test nonambulatory cattle for disease such as BSE and stated that inspectors visiting slaughterhouses may not pass downed or dead animals or their body parts through inspection. Under the bill, the inspector would be required to label such cases as "inspected and condemned."
- Veterinarian Lester Friedlander, a former USDA inspector was quoted on the NoDowners.org website that he has seen thousands of nonambulatory cattle, or "downers," being slaughtered that he believed should have been condemned. "USDA does not use any scientific or microbial testing to determine their true condition," Friedlander said. Cows possibly afflicted with a variety of central nervous system diseases, he said, "are not carefully examined nor prevented from entering the food supply... potentially transmissible diseases will be passed on to human consumers."
