WASHINGTON - Public comment on the U.S. Agriculture Department's ban on allowing "downer" cattle into the food supply is running 10 to 1 in favor of the restriction despite protests by several states and cattle groups.

The Associated Press reviewed roughly 440 written comments currently on file with the USDA and found that about 400 were in favor of maintaining the ban, while the rest favored relaxing it. Some responses received by the USDA are not yet on file, and others that were received by e-mail are also not on file.

Supporters of the ban cite health concerns and compassion as reasons to keep it in place. Opponents say the ban should apply to diseased animals, but not to injured ones, which they say pose no health risk to humans.

The USDA issued the ban last December after a Holstein cow tested positive for mad cow disease in Washington state, the first reported case in the United States. The department's Food Safety and Inspection Service maintains that the cow was a downer - one too sick to stand or walk on its own - although some witnesses have challenged that.

Cattle groups said the ban was too broad and leads to pointlessly condemning cattle that would otherwise bring money to farmers.

"If these (injured) animals are condemned, rather than slaughtered, then producers will suffer an unnecessary economic loss," the National Milk Producers Federation wrote. "Condemning animals suffering from a physical injury such as a broken leg does not seem to be supported by science with respect to BSE risk."

Wisconsin, which is second in the nation in dairy production, also urged the USDA to allow consumption of injured cattle. The state's director of meat safety and inspection, Terry Burkardt, called condemnation of animals with broken bones "a waste of wholesome food and an economic burden" on small farmers.

Burkardt estimated that the rule would preclude 3,000 "otherwise healthy, freshly-injured cattle" from the Wisconsin food supply, or about 2.4 million pounds of meat.

North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arizona and West Virginia filed similar comments.

Minnesota, which is fifth in dairy production, did not file any comments on the rule, but it informed the USDA that it would allow slaughter of injured downers for personal consumption. The state backed off the plan under pressure from the USDA.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, based in Centennial, Colo., asked the USDA to allow such personal consumption exemptions.

Jeffrey Farris, who owns a mobile operation in Ellsworth, Wis., which slaughters livestock on farms, said the ban has hurt his business.

"I don't have a problem with the ban on 'sick' downers, but what about the 'healthy' animal that slips and falls?" wrote Farris. "Those animals don't have anything to do with BSE, so why the ban on slaughtering them?"

In an interview, Farris said about 30 percent of his business comes from downer animals, and he's had to lay off two of his six employees because of the ban.

The Humane Society of the United States argues that any weakening of the ban would both pose a health risk and subject cows to suffering. The Washington-based group said that USDA veterinarians would be hard-pressed to tell if a cow with a broken bone didn't fall because of a disease.

"It would be impossible for them to determine whether a physical injury is derivative of a neurological disorder or other illness," the Humane Society wrote. "It is well established that illness and injury are often interrelated."

The group called the use of downer cattle "one of the ugliest aspects of modern agriculture," noting that such animals are often dragged in chains or pushed in bulldozers. It says that downers should be euthanized humanely rather than brought to slaughterhouses.

The Humane Society got many of its members to weigh in during the public comment period. A typical letter urged the USDA to keep the ban in place, and to expand it to other animals such as pigs, sheep and goats.

But some were more personal and emotional.

"All downed animals that are marketed and brought to slaughter are subjected to horrendous cruelties; often they are dragged to slaughter by their tails and ears, or dumped and left to die in agony," wrote Shari Lewis Thompson of New York City. "Each and every one of them suffers unimaginable pain and fear."