Threats to cow health and welfare

• Mad Cow Disease: Poultry litter contains spilled poultry feed. Spilled feed often contains brain and spinal cord tissue from dead cows, which is added to the feed as a protein source for the chickens. Prions, the infective agents for Mad Cow Disease, can be found in this tissue which is ultimately fed back to cattle. Mad Cow Disease and its human form variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease are slowly progressive, fatal diseases affecting the central nervous system.
• Botulism: Outbreaks of botulism have been reported in cattle fed poultry litter in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. (1,2,3,4,5) The UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs has attributed several bovine botulism deaths per year to illegal poultry litter feeding since the late 1990s. (6)
• Illness and mortality from the residues of poultry drugs: Fatal cardiac problems in cattle have been traced to the residues of poultry drugs in the litter they were fed.(7)
• Metals: In addition to arsenic, toxic metals such as copper have been detected in high concentrations in the tissues of cattle fed poultry litter. Both arsenic and copper can cause fatal poisoning.
• Other bacterial infections

Threats to human health

• Antibiotic resistance: Studies have shown that antibiotic resistant infections are more virulent than infections that respond to antibiotics, causing longer and more costly treatment regimens. For more information, visit www.keepantibioticsworking.com.
• Other foodborne illness: Poultry litter is also comprised of poultry excrement, which contains disease-causing bacteria including some highly virulent strains of Salmonella. (8,9,10,11) These bacteria pose risks to cattle and the humans who consume beef and dairy products. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 76 million Americans contract a foodborne illness each year. (12)
• Variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD): as described above, this practice can potentially spread the human form of Mad Cow disease – a serious and often fatal neurological disease.

A regulatory history: the FDA and its changing policies on chicken litter as animal feed

A ban on the feeding of poultry litter to cows is not out of the question. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) once administered a precautionary policy that did not allow this practice. In 1967, the FDA issued a statement that prohibited the use of poultry litter as animal feed. The statement asserted that the agency has “not sanctioned and does not sanction the use of poultry litter as a feed or as a component of feed for animals” and, “if used as animal feed, poultry litter shall be considered an adulterant…” (13)

However, in 1980 the agency revoked its previous statement. (14) It reasoned that “[b]ecause of the local character of animal waste usage as a feed ingredient and because the states have the capacity to effectively regulate its use,” an FDA prohibition on poultry litter as animal feed was unnecessary. As a result, the responsibility for monitoring the use of poultry litter as cattle feed was left up to the individual state Departments of Agriculture.

FACT believes that turning this responsibility over to the states is not an adequate response to the serious health risks associated with the practice. Our research indicates that a majority of the state Departments do not have data or a way of tracking this practice. In addition, the FDA is responsible for assuring that animal feeds are safe, not only for the animals but also for the ultimate consumers of the meat products that enter interstate commerce. Therefore, because meat products are shipped nationally, it is under the jurisdiction of the FDA to regulate and to ban this practice.

Convincing the FDA to prohibit this practice will take a well-organized and strategic response. FACT is committed to bringing about this change. Contact us at info@foodanimalconerns.org so we can keep you posted on steps you can take. Visit our Donate page to support this work and all our other efforts to make farms healthier and more humane places for animals to live.