The United States is prone to mad cow disease

Lead: Washington, Feb 26 (Reuters) - the United States is prone to a deadly outbreak of mad cow disease because of serious negligence in banning the use of remains of other animals to feed cattle, congressional investigators said Tuesday But U.S government and industry officials ignored the report from the general office of Statistics (GAO), saying more detailed research shows that the risk of BSE in the United States is low Since 1997, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began to consider a ban on meat and bone meal feed to prevent the spread of BSE in the United States So far, there has been no report of BSE in the United States However, Gao's investigation found that FDA used "inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable" data, and tracked the compliance of the feed ban in the U.S meat industry based on these data However, according to a three-year study conducted by Harvard University, mad cow disease is extremely unlikely to occur in the United States The Gao said it found that in several cases, U.S meat producers did not comply with the FDA's feed ban, despite repeated FDA bans on the use of meat and bone meal FDA's senior assistant commissioner City, about 100 of the 10000 meat processing plants in the United States do not meet the requirements of the federal government He said that some manufacturers do not comply with the ban, which is worrying, so the FDA will continue to strengthen the enforcement of the law The Gao said that if the meat producers used imported beef with disease in animal feed, then BSE would have a chance to infiltrate the United States According to the Gao, the United States imports 125 million pounds of beef a year, as well as 1000 cattle, from countries that later reported BSE Experts said there was no sign that the imported meat products had BSE virus, but the virus could remain latent for up to eight years without detection.