THE Bharatiya Cattle Resource Development Foundation, New Delhi, a non- governmental Organisation (NGO), has launched a national campaign against the usage of animal based material in cattle feed. Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, L N Modi, the Managing Trustee of the Foundation informed of the risks involved in the use of bone meal, meat meal, blood meal, silkworm pupae and calcimined bone meal in cattle feed. "The origins of Mad Cow Disease or BSE in Europe are the use of animal products in animal feed. The threat Of BSE has lead to the slaughter of more than a crore of cattle in UK alone," he informed.

Use of animal based products in livestock feed can cause contamination by viruses which can pass on through the food chain to humans, as BSE has already done in the form of an outbreak of Creutzfeldt -Jakob disease. In India one case of the disease in humans was reported last year from Calcutta.