Geoffrey S Becker

Through mid-May 2007, the United States had confirmed three cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease"): the first in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow found in Washington state, the second in June 2005 in cow in Texas, and the third in March 2006 in a cow in Alabama. Shortly after the first case, U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other officials announced measures to improve existing safeguards against the introduction and spread of BSE. Previously, the major safeguards were: (1) USDA restrictions on imports of ruminants and their products from countries with BSE; (2) a ban on feeding most mammalian proteins to cattle and other ruminants, issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); and (3) a targeted domestic surveillance program by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the agency responsible for animal health monitoring and disease control.

On 31 January 2007, the Secretary of Agriculture publicly released a set of recommendations for a 2007 farm bill. The proposal is comprehensive and follows largely the outline of the current 2002 farm bill, which expires this year. It includes proposals regarding commodity support, conservation, trade, nutrition and domestic food assistance, farm credit, rural development, agricultural research, forestry, energy, and such miscellaneous items as crop insurance, organic programs, and Section 32 purchases of fruits and vegetables. The Administration delivered its report to Congress, not as a bill, but as a possible focus for debate and a foundation for developing legislation. The author has received many questions about the content of and potential issues related to the Administration proposal. Given the early stage of the debate, this book poses some questions that may contribute to a better understanding of the proposal. The book contains a brief description of current policy on each topic, a short explanation of the Administration's proposals, and then questions of a policy, program, and/or budgetary nature.

This book presents important analyses of current issues in BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or "mad cow disease") as a fatal neurological disease of cattle, believed to be transmitted mainly by feeding infected cattle parts back to cattle. More than 187,000 cases have been reported world-wide, 183,000 of them in the United Kingdom (UK) where BSE was first identified in 1986. The annual number of new cases has declined steeply since 1992. Humans who eat contaminated beef are believed susceptible to a rare but fatal brain wasting disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). About 160 people have been diagnosed with vCJD since 1986, most in the UK and none linked to any Canadian or U. S. meat consumption.