Beef Off Menu
Posted 4th December 2000

Saying exceptional events call for an exceptional response, the European Commission today announced new measures to deal with the BSE crisis. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is commonly known as mad cow disease. It is a slowly progressive and ultimately fatal neurological disorder of adult cattle. It is linked to a human spongiform encephalopathy, known as Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD). The disease source is strongly linked to the agribusiness practice of feeding reconstituted unsaleable animal products back to farm animals. Creutzfeldt Jacob Disease was first diagnosed in 1996, and is now accepted to be caused by the transmission of BSE to humans. There are 89 confirmed or suspected cases in the European Union, mostly in young people, and all but four in the UK. In recent weeks, BSE has been discovered for the first time in cattle in Germany and Spain, and a three-fold increase in BSE incidents in France this year has seen beef consumption drop by 40 percent. One of the measures announced is a "purchase for destruction" scheme to remove all cattle aged over 30 months from the food chain, unless they have been tested for BSE. "If animals aged over 30 months are not tested, they would have to be destroyed," said David Byrne, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection.

BSE has not been found in animals aged less than 36 months for several years. By testing all animals aged over 30 months we are taking an ultra precautionary approach." Among other measures proposed by Byrne and Franz Fischler, Commissioner for Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, is a temporary ban on the feeding of meat and bone meal to all farm animals and mandatory testing of all cattle over 30 months. Feeding meat and bone meal to cattle, sheep and goats, has been banned in the European Union since July 1994. But it has remained legal to feed meat and bone meal to pigs and poultry, fueling suspicions that it was still being fed to cattle in some places, thereby risking the spread of BSE. Today's proposals, which include several financial measures aimed at easing the financial burden on beef producers, will go to the specially convened Agriculture Council December 4 for approval. Once implemented they will establish common rules to deal with BSE, replacing the fragmented response of individual countries. A ban on meat and bone meal means animals would be fed instead on plant proteins such as oil meals from soya beans, rapeseed or sunflower seed, and protein crops like peas and bean. Although the European Union's 15 member nations could meet part of the increased demand for this type of feed, additional imports would be needed from the United States and South America. "One should not over dramatize the question how the meat and bone meal could be replaced," said Fischler. "There is flexibility in production terms, there are market forces which will make oilseeds production more attractive and there is already a special aid regime for protein crops like beans or peas. "Further measures to make this production more attractive could be explored," said Fischler. The European Commission's response has been largely dictated by a crisis in public confidence. There have been 99 cases of BSE to date this year in France, compared to 31 cases in 1999. The increase partly reflects the introduction of targeted tests for BSE in France.

This has provoked a crisis of confidence in the safety of beef, which has had repercussions in other member states. Spain, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands have limited imports of French cattle and beef, despite the European Commission's Scientific Steering Committee saying embargoes were unjustified. The committee believes that more stringent BSE testing already under way in France will uncover incidence of BSE elsewhere in Europe once testing in cattle over 30 months becomes mandatory across the European Union. Commissioner Byrne repeated that current controls on meat and bone meal, if strictly implemented, should be enough to guarantee its safety. "However, consumers now clearly want copper fastened guarantees that these controls are being implemented," said Byrne. "The Commission proposes, therefore, to ban meat and bone meal until it is satisfied that member states can provide such guarantees." Despite the consumer crisis, the overall incidence of BSE in the European Union is actually falling. The fall has been led by improvement in the UK, where more than 99 percent of all cases to date have been registered. The disease was first diagnosed in the UK in 1986. It reached epidemic proportions due to the inclusion in cattle feed of meat and bone meal produced from animal carcasses. To date, there have been over 179,000 cases in the UK and about 1,300 cases elsewhere in the European Union. While it is continuing to fall sharply in the UK, it is rising in other member states, though nowhere near to the levels witnessed in the UK.

In the UK this year, the number of cases of BSE has dropped by 40 percent to 1,136. This compares to over 36,000 cases in 1992 at the peak of the country's epidemic. The UK has not fed meat and bonemeal to any farm animal since August 1996 and since April 1996 a scheme has been in place to take animals over 30 months old out of the food chain. "What we hope now is that these measures will help restore confidence across Europe about beef, which is a good thing for all farmers, including British ones. It shows that BSE is a pan-European problem and therefore the measures of control should be pan-European not unilateral." Elsewhere in Europe, the Netherlands recently reported its first new BSE case since early 1999. In Luxembourg, no cases have been reported since 1997. In Portugal, the incidence has been stable since mid-1999. Numbers are increasing in France, Belgium and Ireland. In Ireland, the number of cases has risen from 95 cases in 1999 to 110 cases. In Belgium, the corresponding increase is from three to nine cases. Denmark, Germany and Spain have reported their first native BSE cases ever in 2000. Five member states - Italy, Finland, Sweden, Greece, Austria - have yet to officially register a native BSE case.

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