NR ARYT
AU anonym
QU Telegraph 6.6.97
PT Zeitungsartikel
VT
BRITAIN will ban imports of beef from Germany and other European countries unless the EU acts to tighten its anti-BSE controls in abattoirs by July 22.
The ultimatum issued yesterday by Jack Cunningham, Minister of Agriculture, will place him on a collision course with many of his EU counterparts.
He said it was absurd that beef was sold in this country which did not comply with strict British hygiene controls introduced to restore consumer confidence. He also announced tighter measures to protect consumers from scrapie, a fatal brain disease in sheep which is believed to have led to mad cow disease. Dr Cunningham said he would act against beef imports from countries that had suffered outbreaks of BSE but which did not match Britain's tight abattoir checks. Dr Cunningham admitted that he had no way of telling whether other countries had either given full details of the scale of their BSE problem or of checking whether countries were honest in denying that they had a problem.
In an effort to avoid confrontation with Europe, he had decided to give EU ministers until July 22 - the next council meeting of EU farm ministers - to agree to tougher controls throughout the community. He said: "If they don't act, I will. This is no game. This is no bluff. The draft orders are in my briefcase." His decision follows the latest advice from the Government's Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee, which told him that beef should only be imported from countries in which abattoirs followed the British system of carefully removing and destroying the heads, spinal cord, thymus, spleen and other materials.
Exports of British beef have been banned since March last year when SEAC warned that mad cow disease might be linked to a new form of fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in young people. Imports of beef from Europe, especially Germany and Holland, have been soaring in recent months.
The "precautionary" scrapie controls are to be introduced after the Government's scientific advisers warned that BSE might have passed back into sheep. The spleens of all sheep and goats, including all butcher's shop lamb, will be removed and destroyed. Processors will be banned from using mechanically recovered meat from the spinal column. Spinal cords of all sheep and goats more than a year old will be removed and destroyed at slaughter. A compulsory slaughter scheme will be introduced to stamp out scrapie in the national breeding flock of 19.5 million sheep. For the first time, farmers will get compensation under the measures, which could cost the taxpayer millions of pounds.
Last year, 452 cases of scrapie were reported in Britain but some scientists believe that the number is very much higher.
SP englisch
OR Prion-Krankheiten 3