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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

Mad Cow Concerns

Aired January 28, 2004 - 06:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get back to our story on Mad Cow Disease. As I was saying earlier, there was a hearing basically where on the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday where Ann Veneman, the Secretary of Agriculture, testified. Also some news coming out about what the FDA is doing to prevent any human beings in the United States from being infected with Mad Cow.
We have got Linda Detwiler on the telephone with us. She is out there in College Park, Maryland. Linda is a former veterinarian. She knows a lot about this issue. She also used to work for the USDA.

Linda, if you can hear me now?

DR. LINDA DETWILER, VETERINARIAN: I can hear you, thank you.

LIN: There we go. We just did a cell phone commercial.

What did you make of Ann Veneman's remarks yesterday in terms of what is being done to not only reassure consumers here in the United States but also reassure countries across the -- across the world that U.S. beef is safe?

DETWILER: Well I think the Department of Agriculture and Secretary Veneman took some sweeping actions that they announced at the end of December. Yesterday, or the day before, the FDA did announce some actions. And in that regard, I think we could probably see some additional actions that are still needed by the Food and Drug Administration.

LIN: And the actions are basically that they are banning chicken waste from being incorporated into cattle feed. Also barring restaurant meat scraps from being used in animal feed. Do you think that these are superficial remedies? I mean would they -- would there really be a danger anyway of BSE but from being transported from cattle feed to human consumption in that manner anyway?

DETWILER: Well I think that there are two aspects of protecting the public. One is to actual protection that the Department of Agriculture...

LIN: All right, I think we've lost that phone connection again. Our apologies to our audience. I think we're not going to do this again until we really clarify what the problem is. But Linda Detwiler seems to be pretty satisfied with some of the government actions taken and announced over the last couple of days.

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