MAD COW DISEASE IS OUT THERE!    STAY INFORMED!

( Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - BSE )

Teen-age girl latest victim of human form of mad cow disease

LONDON (AP) _ A 14-year-old girl on Saturday became the latest person to die of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow. Zoe Jeffries died at her home in Wigan in northern England, just days after her family allowed television cameras to record her plight. She was seen lying virtually motionless in bed. Helen Jeffries, whose family has since stopped eating meat, said she felt guilty for buying cheap beefburgers, which she fears may have caused her daughter"s illness. "They were the cheapest ones. Zoe ate them probably three times a week," she said. The British government this week promised millions of dollars in compensation for families stricken by the disease. It released an independent report Thursday showing officials were slow to respond to evidence of its threat to human health. It said mistakes were made in the handling of the crisis, including a six-month delay in informing the public about the disease after government scientists identified it in late 1995, for fear of causing panic and damaging British trade. Eighty-one people have now died from the brain-wasting disease in Britain and five other cases are suspected. Three lawsuits have been filed against the government. Both the cow form, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease are varieties of a rare group of brain-wasting diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Such illnesses cause microscopic holes in the brain. There is no cure.

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British 14-Year-Old Girl Dies From CJD

LONDON (Reuters) - A fourteen-year-old girl, who appeared on British television earlier this week to highlight the plight of people suffering from the human form of "mad cow" disease, died Saturday, police said. "Zoe Jeffries passed away today," a spokesman for Wigan police, who were handling media inquiries, told Reuters. Zoe"s mother Helen allowed television cameras and reporters into her home this week to tell the terrible tale of her daughter"s fight against new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). "One morning she got up and just didn"t do anything. It was as though she went to bed one person and got up a completely different person," she said on Channel Four television. Zoe was diagnosed with vCJD, which destroys the brain, when she was 12, shortly after her father died of a heart attack. She was the 86th confirmed victim of the disease in Britain. Earlier Saturday scientists from the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh said that a 74-year-old man had died from vCJD last year. Until now, most of the known victims of vCJD have been young people from 12 years old upwards with only a handful of deaths among more mature people aged up to 55. DEATH TOLL ESTIMATES MAY NEED TO BE REASSESSED Scientists may now have to reassess the likely death toll due to vCJD and factor in the possibility of older people dying from the disease. "We are trying to redo the analysis at the moment because we"d been somewhat misguided by the considerable clustering of the cases in the younger age groups," a government adviser, Professor Roy Anderson, told the Independent newspaper. "This one case somewhat changes that view so we are in the process of taking into account the rise of the numbers in the light of a considerably broader age range," he added. His computer predictions had originally forecast that up to 6,000 people had been infected between 1980 and 1996. Now that figure could rise as high as 130,000. Zoe"s death and the announcement of the 74-year-old"s infection came just after an official report into mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), was published Thursday. The report, led by senior judge Lord Phillips, concluded the government had misled the public for years about the dangers of British beef and the chances of BSE being spread to humans. It also said bureaucracy had hampered the response to the crisis. Leading British scientists who first sounded the alarm about BSE said "we told you so" Thursday after the report of the 2 1/2-year inquiry vindicated the concerns they had voiced more than a decade ago. The British government has said it is keen to set up a compensation scheme for CJD victims which could run into millions of pounds.

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Spread Through Surgery? Incurable Brain Disease Passed to Other Patients

The Associated Press N E W O R L E A N S, Oct. 27, 2000 - A patient who died after brain surgery had an incurable disease that may have spread to eight other patients through tainted instruments, hospital officials said. Tulane University Hospital and Clinic destroyed the instruments as soon as officials realized the first patient had died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, said Dr. Alan Miller, a Tulane vice president. The patient checked into the hospital in March and the disease was diagnosed in an autopsy in May, The Wall Street Journal reported today. The university said the other patients all had brain surgeries and the surgical instruments were put through "normal" washing and sterilization procedures. Citing patient confidentiality requirements, Tulane did not release the patients' names or the dates of the procedures. The eight living patients are receiving counseling and related medical care, Miller said in a statement. University officials declined requests for interviews today. Related to Bovine Brain Disorder? The disease strikes about 6,000 worldwide people per year, leaving the brain with holes and a spongelike consistency, resulting in progressive dementia and loss of physical functions. Patients usually die within a year of the first symptoms. University officials did not say whether the original patient had the form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob that may be related to a bovine brain disorder known as "mad cow disease." Some authorities believe humans contract that form of the disease by eating meat from infected cows. It was not known how the original patient contracted the disease. The only proven method of transmission between people is medical treatment with tainted human matter or surgical instruments, according to the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation. The independent group that renewed the hospital's accreditation last month for three years, will investigate, as will the federal agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid.

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Mad Blood

Report Finds Cow Disease Can Transfer in Transfusions

Cattle arrive for sale at the market in Gloucester, western England. Findings published in the Lancet medical journal, raise the possibility the human form of the disease could be transmitted through blood transfusions. (Barry Batchelor/AP Photo)

The Associated Press L O N D O N, Sept. 15, 2000 - Sheep in the early, symptom-free stages of mad cow disease can pass the brain-wasting ailment to other sheep through blood transfusions, new research has found. The findings, published today in the Lancet medical journal, raise the possibility the human form of the disease could be transmitted through blood transfusions. But researchers cautioned the risk was still "theoretical." No cases have been recorded of humans becoming infected from a blood transfusion. Additionally, blood banks in Britain have introduced precautions to reduce the risk of contaminated blood supplies, including filtering out all white blood cells which could potentially carry the infection and importing plasma from countries where there is no evidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of the fatal mad cow disease. "No further measures would seem possible - short of a draconian decision to shut down the whole U.K. blood donor system," said Paul Brown, a senior research scientist at the American National Institute of Neurological Disease in Bethesda, Md., who was not connected with the study. Speaking Too Soon? Writing in Lancet, Brown criticized the researchers for publishing their study at such an early stage before further tests were complete. Britain's Department of Health said the research did not present any significant new risk to the public, as scientists have long suspected that Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease can be transmitted through the blood of victims not showing any symptoms. "The government introduced these precautionary measures … to minimize any theoretical risk to patients," the department said. "This risk remains theoretical." The researchers from the Institute for Animal Health in Edinburgh and Compton, England, fed cattle brain infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, to a number of sheep. Blood was then taken from 19 infected British sheep before any symptoms were apparent and transfused into healthy sheep from New Zealand. After 610 days, one of the transfused sheep began to show signs of mad cow disease. All the others are still healthy. Benefits Outweigh Risk "Although this result was in only one animal, it indicates that BSE can be transmitted between individuals of the same species by whole-blood transfusion," the researchers concluded. "It suggests there is a risk from blood transfusion in the human population," Chris Bostock, the institute, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "But the benefits of having a blood transfusion will greatly outweigh any risks." Some 82 cases of the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been confirmed in Britain. The disease first surfaced in the mid-1990s, a decade after a vet discovered Britain's first BSE-infected cattle herd. Scientists believe people contract Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by eating beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but the disease can be confirmed only by examining the brain after death. Since the British outbreak, the disease has also been found in cattle in Portugal and in smaller numbers in Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg.

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Contaminated French beef fed to humans - newspaper >

PARIS, Oct 30, 2000 (Reuters)-Fresh doubts were cast on the safety of France"s beef supply on Monday after a newspaper said meat from around 30 cows that consumed high amounts of heavy metals wound up in the human food chain. The daily Le Parisien reported that the cows consumed lead, mercury, cadmium, nickel, chromium, copper and zinc as a result of a polluted canal that repeatedly overflowed, flooding the pasture in which the animals grazed. "Instead of being born black and white, some of my calves came out of the womb reddish-brown and white," the farmer who owned the herd was quoted as saying. The newspaper said that of the 84 cows that lived in the pasture between 1998 and 2000, more than 40 died as a result of the contamination. Most of the others, some of which took on a rusty hue because of the amount of copper they consumed, were sold to slaughterhouses and became ground beef. The paper said the cattle, raised in the Somme area of northern France, made their way into the human food chain because of government apathy and a lack of laws regarding pollution by heavy metals. The Farm Ministry declined to comment on the report. The revelation was the latest in a series of scares that shocked a gourmet country proud of its culinary traditions. Last week, three retail chains warned customers to return beef they had bought because some of their shipments had come from a herd contaminated by mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Eating BSE-infected beef can trigger a version of the similarly fatal Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease in humans.

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Supplement Dangers Risk that Some Dietary Supplements May be Contaminated

A doctor writing in the New England Journal of Medicine says he worries that dietary supplements could contain material from mad cows.

By Melissa Schorr

B O S T O N, July 26, 2000 - Dietary supplements, used by almost half of all Americans, often contain raw animal products that may be contaminated with mad cow disease, due to lack of federal oversight, says a Maryland doctor. Dr. Scott Norton, a Chevy Chase, Md.,-based dermatologist, says he discovered the disturbing news when he took his sons to the local health food store for an "indoor safari " after their nature hike was rained out. But instead of finding natural herbs and plants on the labels, to his dismay, the former botanist discovered they contained raw animal meats, such as cow thymus, liver and brain. This finding led Norton to question the source - and safety, in this era of mad cow disease - of the contents of dietary supplements, which industry watchdogs say are largely unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

"I was appalled," Norton says. "If I were given the opportunity to eat brain tissue from an unidentified animal, for an unidentified location, I would decline - and recommend that my family and patients decline, too." Norton wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine that was published today sounding the alarm to doctors and consumers.

"We thought the author made some interesting points that ought to be of concern to people who take these products," says Dr. Robert Utiger, the journal's deputy editor, who decided to print the striking letter.

No Oversight in Sight

Norton points out that although there have been no documented cases of any transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - known as mad cow disease - through dietary supplements, without adequate governmental oversight, the possibility exists.

And several pharmacologists say they don't find the idea as outlandish as one might think. "I believe that Dr. Norton has articulated a reasonable concern," says Jan Engle, professor of pharmacy at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "There is a theoretical risk."

Bovine Brains

Mad cow disease, which has caused the death of more than 50 people in Britian, is thought to be caused by prions, which are unidentified infectious agents that eat away at brain tissue. No cases have been documented in the U.S., largely because the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have banned the import of beef from affected countries.

But because the FDA doesn't regulate what goes into dietary supplements, there is no way of assuring that infected meat from overseas is not being used. "The origin of these products is not controlled," says Dr. Domenic Sica, professor of medicine and pharmacology at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. "Some of this stuff has raw materials imported from outside the U.S. It's not safe just because a company says it's safe."

"There's so many ways that there are holes," agrees Dr. Randy Juhl, dean of the school of pharmacy at the University of Pittsburgh. "Such as, if the supplement is imported from another country. And who is looking to see where the dead cows came from? This points out yet another hole in our regulation of dietary supplements."

Supplements Unsupervised

That hole, experts say, has been caused by a 1994 act of Congress that left dietary supplements largely unregulated before they go on the market. "Companies don't have to do safety tests," explains David Schardt, an associate nutritionist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. "They're not allowed to sell products they know are unsafe, but the FDA has to prove they're unsafe before can pull off. The FDA has the burden of proof."

"This is another example of the dietary industry selling protects that have potential health risks and eluding safety monitoring," Norton says. "The industry needs some regulation." The FDA was preparing a statement in response to the letter at press time. But so far, the agency has only been concerned with keeping regulated drugs and medical products free of the disease, says Paul Brown, senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health and chairman of the committee monitoring the transmission of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.

"I would look forward for this issue to be the subject of a meeting for public discussion," Brown says. "Some of these supplements do use powdered bovine brain. I guarantee you if you used an animal with mad cow disease, it would be infectious."

Prions Prevailing

There is a risk that prions could remain even in supplements that have been processed because they are harder to kill than bacteria and viruses, explains Caroline Smith DeWalle, director of food safety of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "We don't know how to clean up the products to prevent the transmission of mad cow disease," she says. "There is no safe way to assure the products of these animals aren't affected." But testing these dietary supplements for presence of the disease would be "horrendously expensive" and would not able to pick up the minute traces, anyway, the NIH's Brown says.

Supplements are 'Safe'

The letter "falsely impugns the safety of glandular products marketed in the U.S.," says John Cordaro, president of the Council For Responsible Nutrition, a dietary supplement industry group. "Consumers who value these products can use them in confidence," he says, because the FDA's "import alert" monitors shipments of cattle products from affected countries and would consider them to be "adulterated." Only a "tiny proportion" contain glandular ingredients from cows, he adds, and those that do usually come from herds in the U.S.

Indeed, companies like Standard Process, a 70-year old supplement manufacturer based in Palmyra, Wis., which uses cow brains, spleens and livers in some of its products, notes on its Web site that bovine organs come from USDA-inspected facilities, and only from within the United States. But experts agree there is always a risk of companies either unknowingly or unscrupulously obtaining contaminated cow material.

"I hope these companies are using their heads," the NIH's Brown says, "and not the cattle's heads."

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WIRE:10/31/2000 14:08:00 ET

Scientist proposes new theory for origin of mad cow disease

LONDON (AP) A veterinary scientist has proposed a new theory for the origin of mad cow disease, saying he believes it likely came from a wild animal commonly found outside Britain that was chopped up for cattle feed in England. Roger Morris, a professor of animal health at Massey University in New Zealand, has spent years investigating about a half-dozen credible theories of how British dairy cattle could have contracted the disease, blamed for the deaths of 81 people so far. Until now, scrapie, a brain-wasting disease found in sheep, has been the prime suspect because of its similarities to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. But Morris said his research indicates it is less likely the outbreak was caused by cows being fed scrapie-infected sheep. Morris said he is investigating a list of about 15 suspected wild animals, but would not specify them until his research is published in a scientific research journal sometime next year. "There are a range of wildlife species I see as potential sources, but I"ve not yet come to a conclusion on which species it"s most likely to be," he said in an interview this week. Dr. Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University in Scotland, who has researched the disease, said Morris" theory was just one of a number of credible theories of the origins of the outbreak. Pesticides and bacteria have been ruled out as the cause. Experts say that while pinpointing the origins of mad cow will not help the British control the human form of the illness, variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease, it is important for heading off future outbreaks elsewhere around the world. An independent committee commissioned by the British government published a report Thursday that also downgraded the idea that mad cow disease originated from scrapie. But that group reached a different conclusion, which has been questioned by some experts _ that a genetic mutation in a single cow was responsible. "I rank that low. The genetic mutation theory is even less likely than scrapie. There"s no evidence for it at all," Morris said. Morris said he theorizes that a wild animal carrying a version of BSE specific to its own species somehow arrived in Britain, was captured and its brain and organs ended up in a batch of feed given to about 1,000 dairy cows in the southwest of England between 1975 and 1977. About half of the cows then became infected, he said, adding that the infected cattle ended up in other parts of the country, before being recycled as cattle feed in 1981, spreading the disease. BSE has an incubation period of about five years. The first cases of mad cow disease were identified in Britain in 1986. Scientists believe humans caught the disease by eating processed food containing the infected brains and organs. Scrapie, BSE and variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease are all types of illnesses known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. They are all fatal and result in a mass of sponge-like holes in the brain. Scrapie was the only other similar disease known to infect farm animals and waste from slaughtered sheep was used in cattle feed, so scientists focused on investigating a link between the two diseases.

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Slow Response 'Mad Cow'

Report Criticizes British Officials-Scottish farmer James McAdam feeds one of his beef cattle on the Callendoune farm near Helensburgh in Scotland 1998. A massive independent report about mad cow disease said officials were slow to respond to evidence of this new threat to human health. (Jeff J Mitchell/Reuters)

By Emma Ross-The Associated Press

L O N D O N, Oct. 26, 2000 - The government promised millions in compensation today for families stricken by the human version of "mad cow disease," as it released a massive independent report which said officials were slow to respond to evidence of this new threat to human health.

British Agriculture Minister Nick Brown said the government had not decided details of the fund. Eighty people have died from the brain-wasting disease and five other cases are suspected in Britain. "We intend to work closely with the families affected to identify the best way forward. The first discussions with the families and their representatives will take place next week," Brown said.

The report, the fruit of a 2½-year inquiry headed by Lord Phillips, a high-ranking judge, largely concluded that officials acted honorably and did not seek to protect the farming industry at the expense of public health. However, mistakes were made in the handling of the crisis, which created a new fatal disease in humans and devastated Britain's cattle industry, the report concluded. Submitting the report to the House of Commons, Brown called the disease "a national tragedy." Experts believe people contracted the human form of mad cow disease - variant Creutzfeld Jakob Disease - by eating infected beef. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, and variant Creutzfeld Jakob Disease, or vCJD, are varieties of a rare group of brain-wasting diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Such illnesses cause microscopic holes in the brain, making it spongy. There is no cure.

An Epidemic Develops

The report concluded that BSE, which emerged in 1986, probably originated in the 1970s from a cow or other animal that got sick as a result of a gene mutation. An epidemic then developed because of a new farming practice - the recycling as cattle feed of meat and bone meal from infected cows. The report said agriculture officials suspected a potential public health risk from the beginning, when the cow disease was identified in 1986. Slaughterhouse regulations were imposed to prevent infected meat reaching dinner tables, but the public was repeatedly reassured beef was safe to eat.

More scientists began to believe that BSE could be transmitted to humans after a domestic cat was diagnosed with a similar disease in May 1990. It wasn't until March 1996 that the government announced that the cow illness could infect humans. "The government was preoccupied with preventing an alarmist overreaction to BSE because it believed that the risk was remote," the report said. "It is now clear that this campaign of reassurance was a mistake."

Still Seeking Answers

Since no one knows how long the incubation period is, no one knows how many people are likely to die from the incurable illness. If the incubation period is very long - some experts believe it could be as long as 30 or 40 years - the epidemic may hardly have started yet.

The European Union banned all British beef exports in March 1996.

It lifted the prohibition in August, 1999. The decision was taken as a result of the safety measures adopted by Britain and evidence that BSE was on its way out.

Key Dates in 'Mad Cow' Disease :

LONDON, Oct 26 - Following are key dates in Britain's mad cow crisis:

2000 -

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Fear of Mad Cow Disease Spreads

The Associated Press Nov 10, 2000 3:46PM PARIS (AP) - Fear over mad cow disease swelled across Europe Friday, with France banning sweetbreads and the Swiss Red Cross severely limiting blood donations from people who spent time in Britain, where the beef scare exploded in 1996. Officials said the moves were purely precautions against mad cow, which has been linked to a variant strand of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which affects humans. Yet alarm seemed to be spreading, and the European Union''s health and consumer protection commissioner, David Byrne, urged EU member nations to go beyond a recent requirement that they randomly test their herds by January. The requirement was put in place after the number of cases of mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, tripled in France to 90 this year, compared to 31 last year. French authorities say the increase is due to the implementation of special detection tests. Two people are known to have died in France from the human form of mad cow, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - compared to 81 people in Britain. Byrne''s statement urging more random testing came just two days after he spoke in reassuring tones, saying the number of infected cows was low - approximately seven cases per million cattle. Geneva authorities, pressured by ``very worried'''' parents, joined the ranks of nearly two dozen French districts that have pulled beef from school menus, said Philippe D''Espine, a spokesman for the city. Geneva''s proximity to France - which surrounds the city on three sides - played a part in the decision, he said. The ban affects all beef - not just French imports. In response to public concerns, Italian Agriculture Minister Alfonso Pecoro Scanio asked the EU''s veterinary committee to hold an urgent meeting. The Swiss Red Cross announced it was barring blood donations from people who spent more than six months in Britain between 1980 and 1996. Regional offices have until March to implement the ban. Dr. Rudolf Schwabe, director of the group''s blood transfusion service in Bern, said there was ``no proof but some evidence that it could be possible to transmit CJD with blood.'''' He stressed that the measure was purely precautionary. Schwabe said it likely will involve no more than 2,000 donors who were living in Britain as mad cow broke out. In France, the Agriculture Ministry''s special research section on mad cow announced it would ban sweetbreads, a delicacy widely served in French restaurants which is made from a cow''s thymus gland. The one-year ban is a precaution, the ministry said. Officials added that the sweetbread ban was based on advice from the country''s food safety agency, but does not mean consumers who have recently eaten should be concerned. The ban concerns cows born after May 1, 1999. Thymuses of cows born before that date were banned earlier. Cow intestines of cows born before that date were banned earlier. Cow intestines were banned last month. Officials of France''s leftist government have warned against what they call a `psychosis'' over mad cow. In an interview published Friday in the daily Liberation, Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany criticized a plan by France''s largest farmers'' union to withdraw from the market cows born before July 1996. He said it has ``no rational foundation'''' in the fight against mad cow. ``If it were a public health measure, I would absolutely support it,'''' Glavany said. ``But it''s nothing of the sort.'''' The farmers'' union said Tuesday it planned to withdraw from the market older cows, born before France imposed strict measures on cattle feed in 1996. That is when mad cow disease became a palpable fear among Europeans because of its spread in Britain. Beef prices have plunged at meat markets around France. One slaughter house in Quimper, in the eastern Finistere region, lost 65 percent of its business within a few days and may close its doors next week, France-Info radio reported.

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French Authorities Deny Patient Suffering nvCJD

Nov 17,  2000 3:24PM

PARIS (Reuters) - French medical authorities said on Friday that a patient at a Paris hospital was not suffering from the human form of mad cow disease as previously suspected. French media had speculated that a 40-year-old woman at Paris's St Antoine hospital might be suffering from the new variant of the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The hospital confirmed earlier on Friday that it could be dealing with a case of CJD, but the Paris Public Hospitals Authority later denied that it was the new variant. "Existing medical evidence allows us to rule out this diagnostic," it said in a brief statement.

The French daily Figaro said the woman, who gave birth to a son on November 9, had been admitted to St Antoine hospital suffering from depression during her pregnancy. She had since presented symptoms similar to those of nvCJD, the human form of mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), it said. A final analysis on whether somebody has nvCJD can only be made with a post mortem examination after the person dies.

Two people are reported to have died in France of nvCJD while a third person is believed to be dying of the disease. The families of two of the three victims launched a legal case on Friday, accusing France, Britain and the European Union of failing to take action to stem the epidemic among cattle and its transmission to humans.

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Mad Cow Hits Azores, Germany

Nov 24, 2000 2:42PM

LISBON, Portugal (AP) - Germany and Portugal's Azores Islands recorded new cases of mad cow disease Friday, highlighting the brain-wasting disease's rapid spread across European borders amid growing consumer alarm and fears of health risks for humans.

The infected cow in Germany, born in 1996, was tested Wednesday, after its slaughter in the town of Itzehoe, authorities in Schleswig-Holstein state said. Previously, German testing had detected mad cow disease only in animals imported from Britain and Switzerland.

The infected cow in the Azores marked the first time the disease has popped up there. The cow was a five-year-old animal imported from Germany's Hanover region in 1998, according to the regional agriculture authority. ``The European Union's open borders ... and the lack of proper controls ... are worsening this crisis,'' said Joao Dinis of Portugal's National Agricultural Federation, a group of private farmers. Sales of beef have dropped throughout Europe as fear spreads about mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Scientists believe eating infected meat could cause a similar ailment in humans, the usually fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

In Spain, which recorded its first case of mad cow disease earlier this week, the cabinet approved a decree Friday creating a committee to monitor the disease. In Switzerland, the Federal Veterinary Office on Friday proposed a national control body to speed up the eradication of the disease. Swiss authorities decided Thursday to halt the import of all breeding cattle at least temporarily.

Scientists believe mad cow disease originated in Britain, when cattle were given feed containing the ground remains of sheep infected with a brain ailment. That practice is now banned throughout the European Union. This week, agriculture ministers from the 15-nation EU agreed in principle to a massive upgrade in testing for the disease.

Mainland Portugal has been one of the worst-affected countries: 467 cases of mad cow disease have been reported there since 1990. The EU banned Portuguese beef exports in 1998. But before Friday, no cases of mad cow disease had been reported on the Azores, and the islands were excluded from the Portuguese ban because cows can graze there all year long and do not require special feed supplements.

After Friday's discovery, the Azores regional agriculture authority announced a plan to slaughter more than 2,600 cows imported in recent years, about half of them from Germany, to assuage consumer fears. German officials have said they don't have any plans to ban the importation of beef from other countries, but they have demanded clearer labeling on beef from Britain, where more than 80 people have died of the human form of the disease. Germany also has proposed a ban on the use of meat and bone meal in all animal feed.

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EU Says May Need New Anti-Mad Cow Health Measures

Nov 24, 2000 2:53PM

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union may have to take far-reaching health protection measures against mad cow disease to make sure consumers are not put at risk, the EU's health chief said on Friday. Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne, reacting to the discovery of the first cases of mad cow disease reported in Germany and Spain, said he would press for maximum control measures to protect consumers at a special meeting of EU agriculture ministers provisionally set for December 4. "We may have to take significant EU-wide health protection measures to ensure that consumers are not put at risk," he said in a statement, without giving details. He urged France, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, to also invite health ministers to the meeting.

France has suggested calling a special meeting of farm ministers to discuss the mad cow crisis. A French presidency official could not say on Friday whether it had been definitely fixed yet for December 4. Britain bore the brunt of the mad cow crisis in the 1990s. Europe is now being swept by a new wave of public alarm over BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and its human version, new variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, which has killed two people in France and more than 80 in Britain.

French beef sales plunged as more BSE cases were reported and three supermarket chains said they might have sold meat potentially tainted with the disease. Byrne said that, regrettably, he was not surprised by the discovery of BSE in Germany and Spain. The European Commission said it had for years warned of the probability of BSE being found in other EU member states. "In particular Germany and Spain had been identified as countries where there was a likelihood of BSE being discovered," it said.

GERMAN BAN

Following the discovery of the German BSE cases, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Friday that Germany planned to introduce a general ban on meat-based animal feeds. There is already an EU ban on giving animal-based feed to ruminants, which include cows, sheep and goats, but not poultry and pigs. However, some cattle farmers are suspected of having flouted the ban.

Byrne said that if the German, Spanish and other governments believed that controls on the feeding of meat and bone meal to cattle may not have been fully respected then "precautionary measures are urgently needed." So far Byrne has resisted calls for a blanket EU-wide ban on the feeding of meat and bone meal to animals. Byrne urged Germany and Spain to ensure they fully implemented recent EU legislation to remove from the food chain animal tissues such as the brain and spinal cord thought to harbor BSE. "You cannot take unnecessary risks with public health," he said.

Removing these tissues -- known as specified risk materials (SRMs) -- from the food and feed chain was the single most efficient measure to combat BSE and protect public health, the Commission, the EU's executive body, said. The Commission took a dig at Germany and Spain for being initially reluctant to agree to EU measures to remove SRMs from the food and feed chain. "Although SRMs have been removed from cattle in most member states for many years now, it is only very recently that countries like Germany and Spain have agreed to do so," it said. "European Commission initiatives in this regard were blocked for nearly four years because of the opposition of those member states who claimed to be BSE-free," it said.

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