Legislators renew effort to fight mad cow disease

On Wednesday, Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., joined with House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to announce the reintroduction of bills to prevent meat from "downed animals" from entering the human food supply.

At a news conference, Ackerman noted the Agriculture Department has adopted a regulation to prevent the meat from downed animals from being used for food, but said he wanted to make it a permanent law because he was afraid that USDA would "fine tune" the regulation for the benefit of the meat industry.

Agriculture Secretary Veneman put the regulation in place after the discovery that a non-ambulatory cow slaughtered in Washington state in December had "mad cow" disease.

The legislation introduced Wednesday would cover other animals besides cows, such as pigs and sheep.