Feeding Meat to Animals

The European Commission (EC) has released a proposal that would weaken some of the precautions against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BCE), or mad-cow disease, in an effort to reduce livestock costs. The proposals include modifying the ban on feeding meat to food animals. The ban, introduced by the European Union (EU) in 1994, outlawed feeding mammalian meat to cattle, sheep, and goats, based on scientific findings that feed was a source of the mad-cow crisis. A decline of the disease has been seen in the past three years, and the EC now believes the strict rules can be lessened.