How does USDA monitor the U.S. cattle population for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)?
A. USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) continues to conduct BSE surveillance activities throughout the United States. The target number for testing is 40,000 animals each year. This level of testing exceeds the testing number recommended by the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) for BSE surveillance. Q. Is U.S. meat safe to eat? A. Yes. What truly protects human and animal health is the system of interlocking safeguards, including the removal of specified risk materials-those tissues that studies have demonstrated could contain the BSE agent in infected cattle-from the human food chain, along with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 1997 ruminant to ruminant feed ban. USDA’s ongoing BSE surveillance program is not for the purposes of determining food safety. Rather, it is an animal health surveillance program designed to assess any change in the BSE status of U.S. cattle, and identify any rise in BSE prevalence in this country. This ongoing BSE surveillanc
