미국 캘리포니아 주 광우병 발생을 쇠고기에 저주를 퍼부을 것이 아니라 미국의 식품안전 기준을 강화하도록 변경하는 계기로 삼자는 블룸버그 통신의 기사입니다.
미국에서는 해마다 식중독 환자가 4800만명 발생하고 있으며, 그 중 3천명이 식중독으로 사망하고 있습니다.
블룸버그 통신은 첫째 값싼 사료를 먹이는 관행을 중단해야 한다고 촉구하고 있습니다. 미국에서는 완곡한 어법으로 ‘가금류 퇴비(poultry litter)’라고 부르고 있는 양계장 쓰레기를 소의 육골분 사료의 원료로 사용하고 있습니다. 양계장 쓰레기는 닭이 쪼아 먹다가 흘린 소의 육골분 사료 부스러기, 닭똥, 깃털, 닭 사체 등을 모두 긁어모아 렌더링 과정을 거쳐 소의 육골분 사료 원료가 됩니다. 미국에서는 소에게 닭, 돼지, 말 등을 원료로 만든 육골분 사료를 투여하도록 허용하고 있습니다.
불름버그 통신은 둘째, 광우병 검사비율을 높여야 한다고 권고하고 있습니다. 미국에서는 연간 3천5백만 두의 소(그중 젖소가 290만두 가량 됩니다)를 도축하지만, 광우병 검사는 4만 두에 불과합니다. 광우병 검사는 수동적 예찰에 따라 광우병 임상증상소, 폐사소, 사고소, 절박도살 소 등 건강상태가 좋지 않은 소를 위주로 하고 있기 때문에 실제로 도축장에서 도축되는 소의 0.1% 미만만 광우병 검사를 실시하고 있습니다.
유럽연합에서는 2001년부터 도축장에서 일정 연령 이상의 건강한 도축소를 대상으로 의무적으로 광우병 검사를 실시하는 능동적 예찰을 함께 하고 있기 때문에 비전형 광우병 소와 겉으로 보기엔 멀쩡하고 건강해보이는 무증상 광우병 소를 광우병 검사를 통해 색출해낼 수 있었습니다.
미국처럼 0.1% 비율로 광우병 검사를 하며, 그것도 수동적 예찰을 위주로 검사를 한다면 비전형 광우병 소나 무증상 광우병 소가 인간의 식품체계 및 가축의 사료체계로 유입되는 것을 차단할 수 없습니다.
미국의 주류 언론에서도 미국의 식품안전체계가 문제가 있으니 이번 기회에 식품안전 기준을
강화해야 한다고 주장하고 있는데… 한국정부는 앵무새처럼 “미국산 쇠고기가 안전하다”는 말만
되풀이 하고 있습니다.
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Mad Cow Is Reason to Change Rules, Not Swear Off Beef
By the Editors May 10, 2012 8:00 AM GMT+0900
출처 : 블룸버그통신 May 10, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-09/mad-cow-is-reason-to-change-rules-not-swear-off-beef.html
The discovery last month of a case of mad-cow disease in California could be taken as good news.
The cow in question was found at a rendering plant, where spent animals are sent for processing into leather, soap, cosmetics and pet food. Tests detected the illness before slaughter. There was never any chance that meat from the cow would enter the human food chain. Cattle futures prices, which initially plunged, are higher now than before the announcement.
Agriculture officials say the animal was infected with an unusual form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the formal name for mad-cow disease, which they believe occurred spontaneously. It wasn’t, we were assured, the result of giving cows feed containing cattle brain and spinal-cord tissue, the route that infected herds throughout the U.K. in the 1990s. (People who eat meat from an infected cow can contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal neurodegenerative condition.) The practice of mixing used organs and slaughterhouse scraps into cattle feed has since been banned in the U.S. and many other countries. It is one reason episodes of mad-cow disease now are so rare.
There may never be a satisfactory answer to how the California cow was infected. Yet the case is a reminder that the U.S. food safety system is in need of improvement, not just to prevent mad-cow disease, but to curtail outbreaks of food-borne illnesses that sicken 48 million Americans a year and lead to 3,000 deaths.
Cheap Feed
The federal government could start by ending the practice of feeding cows what’s euphemistically called poultry litter. Poultry litter is the other feeds that have soared in price in recent years, and farmers use a lot of it — 2 billion pounds spilled food, feathers, excrement, carcasses and bedding material that accumulates on the floors of commercial chicken barns. This material is far cheaper than corn, alfalfa ora year by some estimates.
Because chickens aren’t susceptible to mad-cow disease, poultry farmers are allowed to use feed that includes certain cattle byproducts. In other words, cows can still end up eating feed containing cattle-waste products via poultry litter. The European Commission has banned feeding all forms of processed animal protein to farm animals. The U.S. should do the same.
The U.S. also needs a better system for tracking cattle. Agriculture Department officials initially had trouble locating the California cow’s offspring. (The one they found tested negative.)
The process shouldn’t have been difficult. Many countries – - including less-developed ones like Botswana — tag all cattle, either with plastic ear markers or microchips under the skin. Information gathered from tagging can be stored in a national database and used to log veterinary records, exposure to disease and transport history.
The U.S. had promised a tagging program back in 2003, but it was never put into effect amid objections by the cattle industry over costs. An Agriculture Department study last year estimated the expense at between $5.5 million and $7.3 million, assuming it applied only to animals shipped between states. That’s a relatively small sum compared with the $32 billion in revenue generated in 2009 by the cattle industry; an outbreak of mad cow disease, of course, would come with its own public health costs.
A plan was sent to the White House for review after the California mad-cow discovery that would limit tagging to animals for interstate transport. The ranching industry supports this proposal. But any program should include all cattle. The sick cow in California never left the state and might have been exempt from tagging under the latest plan.
Slipping Through
The U.S. needs a more efficient overall inspection regimen. Of the 35 million cattle slaughtered each year, only 40,000 — much less than 0.1 percent — are tested. This low rate raises the possibility that some diseased animals are slipping through. What are the odds that just one cow was infected with mad-cow disease?
The Obama administration in 2009 pushed for legislation to strengthen food safety, including more inspections of production and processing operations, and two years ago Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act.
The rules to carry out the law were supposed to be in place at the start of the year, but have bogged down at the White House, one that’s perhaps consumed with election-year politics. The administration says it wants to get the rules right. And it’s true, business shouldn’t be overburdened with new regulations. There is no good reason, though, for these basic steps to protect food safety to be put on hold until after Election Day.
Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View:
Today’s highlights: the View editors on India’s economic crossroads; A.A. Gill on London’s shareholder revolt; Ezra Klein on Richard Lugar’s concession speech; Noah Feldman on Israel’s new coalition; Caroline Baum on the nature of U.S. unemployment; Reid Hastie on the failure of narrative thinking; Sam Sherraden on China’s liberalization.
To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.
