... and you thought Mad Cow Disease must be a thing of the past?
Cattle to be Destroyed Unless Tested For BSE
BRUSSELS, Belgium, November 29, 2000 (ENS) - 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.
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 today 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.
more at: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov2000/2000L-11-29-10.html