NR ASMU
AU MacKenzie,D.
TI Wurst case scenario - Lovers of German sausage risk exposure to BSE
QU New Scientist, 04 March 2000
IA http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg16522281.100
VT
Wurst case scenario
Lovers of German sausage risk exposure to BSE
MILLIONS of Germans could be eating brain tissue in cooked meat products that are supposed to be "brain-free", a new test reveals.
German scientists have developed the first test for brain and spinal cord material in products such as pâté and sausages. Their tests reveal that up to 15 per cent of German liverwurst and mettwurst, also known as bologna, may contain undeclared brain material. The scientists say that the use of such tissue is "unacceptable with regard to the development of new variant CJD".
Countries which recognise that their cattle may have BSE destroy brains and spinal cords from slaughtered animals, as these are the most infectious parts. The European Commission wants all member countries of the European Union to do the same, in case BSE is lurking in countries that are officially free of it. In December, the Commission's Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) concluded that "failure to do so is likely to expose a large number of consumers to an unnecessary risk".
But Germany refuses. "We have no BSE in our cattle," says Dorothe Heidemann of the Action Committee for German Meat, which represents farmers. "And there is no wide use of brain in meat products."
"We questioned this," says Ernst Lücker of Giessen University. "Brain is cheap material for sausages." But, he says, "we were astonished to discover there was no way to test for it in cooked meat products."
So Lücker and his team decided to find a way. They collected 440 samples of local ready-to-eat sausage and 126 samples of liverwurst from all over Germany. First, they measured cholesterol. Brain is rich in it, but so are other potential ingredients, such as eggs. They then used monoclonal antibodies to test those sausages with unusually high cholesterol for protein from glial cells in the brain and for an enzyme called enolase, which comes from neurons.
Those results, plus more recent data, says Lücker, revealed that blood sausage and nearly all frankfurters were brain-free. But brain matter turned up in 9 per cent of liverwurst and 15 per cent of mettwurst. It is not illegal to put brain in food in Germany. "But these were the highest-quality products, which may not contain any innards but liver," he says. One company using brain repeatedly has already been fined as a result of the tests.
This poses no risk if the brains are from pigs, or uninfected cattle, but Lücker's test cannot distinguish species. "If there is any brain when the label says there should be none, we should be cautious," he says.
The SSC is expected to announce shortly that BSE cannot be ruled out in Germany. In addition, Germany imports some of its sausage meat, says Lücker. Meat from countries with BSE should not contain brain, but without a test it has been impossible to tell if the ban is enforced. Now, the Swiss Federal Veterinary Office in Bern plans to use Lücker's test to monitor imported and domestic sausage.
Source: Journal of Food Protection (vol 63, p 258)
Debora MacKenzie
SP englisch