Specified risk material
Specified risk material is any of various tissues of ruminant animals that cannot be inspected and passed for human food because scientists have determined that bovine spongiform encephalopathy -causing prions concentrate there, representing a biological food safety hazard to consumers. The term was referred to in the United Kingdom's Specified Risk Material Order 1997, in the United States Department of Agriculture's, and in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's regulatory response to the first confirmed U.S. BSE case in December 2003.
BSE
The BSE infective agent has been found to concentrate in specific tissues of BSE-infected cattle.BSE SRMs
SRMs can include brains, eyes, spinal cord, and other organs; the exact definition varies by jurisdiction. Under the US regulations, SRMs are defined as: the skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia, eyes, spinal cord, vertebral column, the dorsal root ganglia of cattle aged 30 months or older; and the tonsils and distal ileum of all cattle.On January 12, 2004, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA published new rules banning such materials from the human food supply. In the European Union, SRMs are also excluded by law from the human and animal food chain. Most countries in the Americas and Europe are officially recognized by the World Organisation for Animal Health as having a negligible BSE risk status.