BY IAN GRANT
LONDON - British Health Secretary Steven Dorrell reported March 20 that the government had received advice from scientists that 10 recent deaths from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) may have been caused by consumption of beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease."
For years Downing Street has maintained that there was no evidence linking mad cow disease in cattle with CJD, the human version of the fatal brain disorder.
Despite a statement from Minister of Agriculture Douglas Hogg that beef could still be "eaten with confidence," the government admission triggered within days a virtual collapse of the beef market in the United Kingdom.
In Somerfield supermarkets, the sixth largest British chain, beef sales dropped by 43 percent in a week. Some 6,000 abattoir and meat processing workers were laid off by March 31. Cattle prices plummeted and prices of other meat jumped.
On March 27 the European Union (EU) ordered a worldwide ban on British beef exports. But beef sales still fell in both Germany and France due to widespread fears that the risk of infection from non-UK beef was being played down.
On April 3, the European Union voted at an emergency session to pay 70 percent of the cost of destroying 4.7 million UK cattle 30 months and older - 15,000 cows per week. The animals will be slaughtered and incinerated after the end of their working lives, but will continue to be used for milk production or breeding stock. At the same time, on the strong urging of Bonn, the EU brushed aside protests from London and decided to maintain the global ban on British beef exports.
Since the first case of BSE was recorded in 1985, more than 161,000 confirmed cases have been registered in the UK by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. The next highest incidence of the disease has been recorded in Switzerland, with 206 cases.
The disease in cattle most likely originated from the practice of feeding cattle with animal feed made from carcasses infected by "scrapie," an equivalent form of the disease in sheep. In processing this meal, the rendering industry in the UK has been criticized for using temperatures sometimes lower than 100 degrees centigrade, necessary to kill harmful bacteria.
In 1988 the government banned the use of sheep and cow remains in animal feed, but the ban was not fully enforced. Even after the action, animal feed likely to contain infected parts was exported.
Rules introduced to avoid contamination within slaughterhouses have been inadequate and poorly enforced. Only in November 1995 was the practice of stripping meat from cows' backbones outlawed. These cuts can be contaminated by small fragments of spinal cord.
In 1995 the government privatized the local state-controlled health and safety bodies that regulated the industry. The replacement, Meat Hygiene Service, is now laying off workers. Employees say inspectors currently have as little as 17 seconds to examine each carcass.