115 STAT. 12 PUBLIC LAW 107-9 —MAY 24, 2001 (8) foot-and-mouth disease is endemic to more than % of the world and is considered to be widespread in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America; (9) foot-and-mouth disease occurs in over 7 different serotypes and 60 subt5^es; (10) as foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks have occurred, the United States has banned the importation of Hve ruminants and swine and many animal products from countries affected by foot-and-mouth disease; (11) recently, the United States has implemented bans in response to outbreaks in Argentina, the European Union, and Taiwan; (12) although United States exclusion programs have been successful at keeping foot-and-mouth disease out of the United States since 1929, recent outbreaks in Argentina, the European Union, and Taiwan are placing an unprecedented strain on our animal health system; (13) bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a transmissible, neuro-degenerative disease found in cattle; (14) in cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the active agent is found primarily in the brain and spinal cord and has not been found in commonly consumed beef products; (15) bovine spongiform encephalopathy is thought to have an incubation period of several years but is ultimately fatal to cattle within weeks of onset of the active disease; (16) bovine spongiform encephalopathy was first widely found in 1986 in cattle in the United Kingdom; (17) bovine spongiform encephalopathy-carrying cattle have been found in cattle in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland; (18) cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy originating from the United Kingdom have been found and intercepted in Canada; (19) since 1989, the Secretary of Agriculture has prohibited the importation of live grazing animals from countries where bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been found in cattle; (20) other products derived from grazing animals, such as blood meal, bonemeal, fat, fetal bovine serum, glands, meatand-bone meal, and offal, are prohibited from entry, except under special conditions or under permits issued by the Secretary of Agriculture for scientific or research purposes; (21) on December 12, 1997, the Secretary of Agriculture extended those restrictions to include all countries in Europe because of concerns about widespread risk factors and inadequate surveillance for bovine spongiform encephalopathy; (22) on December 7, 2000, the Secretary of Agriculture prohibited all imports of rendered animal protein products from Europe; (23) Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease is a human spongiform encephalopathy; (24) on March 20, 1996, the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee of the United Kingdom announced the identification of 10 cases of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease; (25) all 10 patients developed onsets of the disease in 1994 or 1995;
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