031269 Mad Cow Risk Low For Humans

Washington - With the discovery of mad cow disease in a single American cow, that hamburger on your plate may look a little less appealing. But the fact is, it's probably not any worse than it ever was, according to government and independent food safety officials.

"The risk here is low -- eating a hamburger and getting heart disease is probably much higher than getting the human form of mad cow disease," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center of Science in the Public Interest, the public advocacy group that has warned consumers about eating Chinese food, movie popcorn and all sorts of snack food.

Still, DeWaal advised consumers that they may want to be careful about the ground beef they eat -- either grinding it themselves or having it done at the store on the spot. That's because there's a slight chance the meat may contain parts of the cow's nervous system, the part of an infected animal that spreads the disease.

U.S. government officials and beef industry executives say the country's beef supply remains safe and consumers shouldn't be afraid to eat beef. "There is no reason to warn consumers to avoid meat products they normally consume," said James H. Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation.

Washington area grocery store chains Wednesday also reassured their customers, and few seemed worried. By mid-afternoon, Giant Food had received only four calls of concern while Safeway said only a handful of customers returned meat they had purchased earlier. Both chains said customers could get refunds, though they emphasized their meat did not come from any of the plants that handled the affected cow.

Steven Grover, vice president of health and safety for the National Restaurant Association, said officials haven't yet fully determined where the affected meat went, but he understands it would have been distributed locally, around Washington state. "It is my understanding that none of that has made it into any of the supply systems of the major (restaurant) chains," he said.

"At this time, my advice to consumers is not to worry," said David Lineback, director of the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, a collaborative research effort between the University of Maryland and the Food and Drug Administration. "It's something we want to monitor very closely, but the risk hasn't increased any" with the discovery of one ill cow.

The meat institute's Hodges said the brain and other parts of a cow's nervous system are kept out of the human food-processing chain. In Britain, where 183,000 heads of cattle were found to have mad cow disease, 143 humans died from the related human disease (10 more died outside Britain). But that's a country where brains were, until discovery of the disease, routinely eaten and added to sausage and other food, he said. In the United States, "we don't routinely eat cows' brains," said Hodges.

Consumers should avoid eating brains or any other nervous-system tissue, including beef cheeks or neck bones, DeWaal said.

Muscle meat -- roasts, tenderloins and steaks -- is generally safe to eat because the disease has not been found to affect these tissues.

Although beef industry officials said all cuts of meats are safe because the spinal cord is completely removed, DeWaal suggested consumers stick to boneless varieties and avoid meats with bones that come close to the spinal column -- porterhouse and T-bone steaks, prime rib with bones and chuck blade roasts with bones. She also advised consumers to grind their own meat from all muscle cuts of meat.

Her concern centers on a processing technology called "advanced meat recovery," or AMR, which extracts as much meat as possible from a carcass. Less than 0.2% of the 26.5 billion pounds produced annually is made from this method.

In some instances, DeWaal said, some meat was found to include uninfected tissue from the nervous system. Industry officials Wednesday said the contamination level is below 10%.

Most AMR meat is sold to food processors, who then include it as part of other ground or processed meat such as hot dogs, pizza toppings, sausage, taco fillings or ground beef patties.

But since it doesn't have to be labeled, consumers don't necessarily know if such meat contains AMR- processed meat, DeWaal said. That's why she's urging consumers to check with major processors or restaurants to see if their products contain AMR-processed meat.

Previous surveys, she said, indicated that McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's do not buy AMR meat. Wednesday Pizza Hut and Domino's also said their products do not contain AMR meat. Similarly, a spokesman at Kraft Foods Inc. said none of its products, including Oscar Mayer meats, contains AMR meat. The same was true of ConAgra Foods Inc., which makes Hebrew National products.

It was unclear which firms were buying the AMR meat.

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