Britain Says Safe to Ease Mad-Cow Controls
Date: 02-Dec-04
Country: UK
Author: David Cullen
Britain, heavily criticised in its management of one of the world's worst farming catastrophes, said the number of animals testing positive for BSE had fallen so low that once-stringent measures could now be loosened.
The UK farm and health ministries said Britain could start removing the Over Thirty Months (OTM) rule, whereby cattle over that age are banned from entering the food chain, and replace it with a new testing system after mid-2005.
It was introduced in 1996 to help protect people from contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, from which some 141 Britons are thought to have died.
Up to 7.3 million animals were slaughtered under the scheme by the end of June 2004.
"This decision follows our successful efforts towards eradicating BSE in UK cattle," farming minister Margaret Beckett said in a statement.
EU figures show the number of cases reported have dropped by more than 95 percent in the last three-and-a-half years -- from 124.4 cases per 10,000 animals tested in 2001, to 6.49 cases between January and July this year.
Britain said the main public health protection measure -- the removal of specified risk material (SRM) -- would remain firmly in place, DEFRA said.
Beckett said the new measures could see Britain start shipping beef from late next year.
"We will...be working with Brussels to ensure that beef from UK cattle born on or after August 1, 1996 can be exported as soon as possible after it becomes eligible for sale in the UK," she said.
Britain can ship beef from cows under 30 months old and off the bone under European Union rules, but volumes are low.
Beef producers were delighted by the changes.
"This is very positive decision for the beef industry. It is also welcome recognition of the hard work and investment of British livestock farmers," National Farmers' Union president Tim Bennett said.
EU WELCOMES MOVE
"We think it's perfectly appropriate that they (UK government) should do this," said an official at the European Commission.
It's a sign that BSE is a declining problem in the UK: we have no objections to the move they have made This is a supplementary measure that they introduced. The UK was not required to do this (OTM) under European law," he said.
Most west European countries have been affected with BSE, together with Japan, and more recently, Canada and the United States, where confirmation of the disease has cost millions of dollars in lost exports.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Smith in Brussels)
