Copyright © Cornell University

Alfonso Torres speaking before the Senate Agricuture Committee

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- If all cattle in the United States carried identification, tracking of herds exposed to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow" disease) or other animal diseases would be easier and faster, according to a Cornell University animal-disease and public- policy expert.

Alfonso Torres, executive director of the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, made the suggestion during his testimony Jan. 27 on BSE before the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

He recommended "…t hat Congress in collaboration with the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) needs to make this national animal ID system a mandatory program." Torres also described two other measures to help relieve the trade embargoes imposed on the United States because of mad cow disease: a more equivalent and proportional trade policy, based on the degree of BSE risks with trade partners; and stepped-up enforcement of bans on the use of certain high-risk materials (such as brains, spinal cords and intestines) from non-ambulatory cattle or any cattle over 30 months of age. He noted that the BSE agent (the misfolded proteins, called prions) is known to accumulate in those tissues of infected cattle. "These materials should not enter the human food chain or the animal feed chain," he stated.

At Cornell, Torres also serves as the associate dean of veterinary public policy. He is a former chief veterinary officer of the USDA and former director of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Torres told the Senate committee hearing: "While I recognize and appreciate the many efforts of the USDA and the animal industries in developing and implementing a national animal ID system, the weakness is that such a system is a voluntary effort at this time."

The hearing to discuss food safety, livestock marketing and international trade was called as a result of the discovery last December of a BSE-infected dairy cow in Washington state. If a universal identification system had been in place last year, Torres suggested, American and Canadian officials could more readily have traced the diseased animal and others in its herd. Full text of the Torres testimony is at the veterinary college Web site: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/publicresources/pr-torresTestimony.htm .

Also testifying at the Senate hearing, which was chaired by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), were USDA Secretary Ann M. Veneman and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Lester M. Crawford.