Ban on Cattle Blood in Fish Feed to Continue

EFSA was called in by the European Commission to asess the potential dangers of adding bovine blood compounds to the feed after the European Animal Protein Association prepared a report supporting the reintroduction of bovine spray dried red cells as an ingredient for feeds destined for farmed fish

The practice is currently banned in the EU.

EFSA’s Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards concluded that currently there is insufficient data to quantify the degree of BSE risk for animal or human health from feeding cattle blood products to farmed fish.

In addition, the Panel said that, in line with a previous EFSA opinion from 2004,the practice of stunning and slaughtering cattle could also potentially result in small quantities of BSE infected material (brain particles) contaminating the blood collected.

The Panel said that in line with another previous opinion on fishmeal there is only a remote risk of fish themselves contracting BSE through potentially BSE blood-contaminated feed.

However, the Panel said that a human or animal health risk may arise if recycling of BSE-contaminated bovine blood into feed destined for cattle occurs directly (i.e. bovine blood products fed to cattle) or indirectly (i.e. fishmeal made from fish recently fed with BSE contaminated bovine blood given to cattle). Intraspecies recycling (e.g. cattle to cattle or sheep to sheep) of blood or other animal proteins is not permitted under EU law.

According to the Panel, there would also be an undesired side effect from adding bovine blood to feed for fish, as this would potentially limit the suitability of current detection methods to distinguish between the blood and other prohibited bovine by-products in animal feeds, such as Specified Risk Materials (SRMs) which include cattle brain, spinal cord and other potentially BSE infectious tissues.