Brown questions French BSE test
28 January 2000
Brown questions French BSE test
By Philip Clarke
AGRICULTURE minister Nick Brown has questioned a decision by France to start screening beef to satisfy consumer concerns in France about BSE.
Tests will be carried out on a number of French animals going for slaughter, checking the brains and backbones for signs of the disease.
France wants understand more about the reality of the risks, French health minister Dominique Gillot told a last weekend.
But Mr Brown said that tests for sub-clinical cases of BSE have not yet been properly evaluated.
Mr Brown said there was no over-thirty-month scheme in France, so French consumers ate much older cattle than consumers in the UK.
Tests would possibly be more effective in animals that were closer to the clinical onset of BSE, he added.
The second case of BSE this year in a dairy cow from the Maine-et-Loire department has already been reported. All 91 animals in the herd were destroyed.
A statement said the case was probably due to the animal eating feed not intended for cattle. Last year, France had 31 officially-declared BSE casualties.
- France admits third BSE case of year, FWi, yesterday (27 January, 2000)
- Nation-wide BSE checks for French cattle, FWi, 24 January, 2000