WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration’s top official called Monday for eliminating an illness spreading through deer and elk populations that’s similar to mad cow disease.

Chronic wasting disease is one of a family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Unlike mad cow, which can be a transmitted to humans, chronic wasting disease is not considered a threat to human health.

The disease is not known to spread to cattle, but scientists say that can’t be ruled out. So far, cattle are believed to have contracted the disease only when injected with the infectious agent in a laboratory.

“We probably should try to eradicate it. There’s no reason you couldn’t stop it,” said Deputy FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford. “It’s not something you want in the livestock herds.”

Crawford, a veterinarian, is running the FDA until a new commissioner is appointed.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to a human illness called new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, the first U.S. case of which was reported last week. The victim, who lives in Florida, is believed to have contracted it in Great Britain. Mad cow disease has never been found in the United States.

Chronic wasting disease was believed until a few years ago to be confined largely to wild deer and elk in a small area of Colorado. But it has now been discovered in wild deer and captive elk herds in Wisconsin, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana and Saskatchewan.

The FDA is working with the Agriculture Department to determine how extensively chronic wasting disease has spread and is considering new regulations, Crawford said.

“There’s every reason to be concerned that we control it and confine it now that we have the opportunity,” said Crawford.