The Food and Drug Administration squandered yet another opportunity to close loopholes in its BSE firewall yesterday. According to an href="http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2005/new01240.html"> agency press release, a new rule proposed by FDA to control mad cow disease expands current protections by banning the use of specified-risk material-brain and spinal cord tissue-from older cattle, but the proposed rule fails to close loopholes that allow cattle to be fed other cow parts through restaurant plate scrapings, chicken litter, and calf formula. A proposed 2004 rule that was never enacted by the agency would have banned animal feed containing plate waste and poultry litter. Though the brain and spinal cord tissue is most likely to carry the mad cow disease prion, scientists believe that other ruminant to ruminant feeding can lead to the spread of mad cow disease. Read the FDA press release on the new proposed regulations. Read a Public Citizen press release: New Animal Feed Rules Sill Leave Consumers at Risk. href="/article/articleview/2917/1/219?TopicID=1">Read OMB Watch background on mad cow disease.