BSE risk and the use of meat and bone meal in the feed industry

The paper presents an insight from epidemiology and geography on the BSE risk. The epidemic declined sharply following the ban of meat and bone meal in ruminant feed. BSE cases born after the ban and reinforced measures were due to cross-contamination between feed for monogastrics and feed for ruminants at the feed factory and on farms. Cross-contamination is difficult to control in the feed chain, particularly because contaminated material can infect cattle at very low doses. Designing separate feed processing lines or dedicating factories to ruminants is an efficient strategy, but is not economically feasible in the regions with low animal density. So, changes in control measures should target both the feed industry and farmers, and take into account the difficult economic context that limits the industry’s ability to adopt the most effective solutions to prevent cross-contamination.

Agricultural science · Animal Feed · Biology · Bone meal · Business · Context (archaeology) · Factory (object-oriented programming) · Fish meal · Meat and bone meal · Meat packing industry · Soybean meal · Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology · Biotechnology · Computer Science · Food Science · Prion Diseases and Protein Misfolding · Salmonella and Campylobacter epidemiology