BSE: Feed firms flouted offal ban
27 October 2000
BSE: Feed firms flouted offal ban
By Alistair Driver
FEED companies deliberately flouted the 1989 government ban on selling cattle feed containing bovine offal.
That caused thousands more animals to become infected with BSE, the Phillips inquiry concludes.
“As a whole, the animal feed industry does not emerge from the BSE story with credit,” the long-awaited report says.
The report also criticises the government for lapse enforcement of rules designed to prevent the spread of BSE.
Lord Phillips said yesterday that the biggest single factor in the spread of the disease was the failure to realise that a tiny amount of infected material can transmit BSE.
The extent of infection, masked by a long incubation period, was also unknown.
Without these “misconceptions”, the government would have had a different attitude to enforcing the rules.
In 1987, MAFF had concluded that infected cattle remains recycled in meat and bonemeal in cattle feed were responsible for the spreading of the disease.
By July 18, 1988, the ruminant feed ban, outlawing the feeding of ruminant protein to cattle and sheep, came into force.
But around 24,000 more animals born after that date became infected in 1988 and 1989.
Some feed mills and merchants deliberately continued to sell feed containing protein, the inquiry says.
“Some (of the infected animals) will have resulted from farmers who had little or no means of knowing whether their stock contained ruminant protein, continuing to use the feed they had in stock,” it added.
An even greater problem was cross-contamination in feed mills as feed companies continued to use meat and bonemeal in pig and poultry feed.
Fears that bovine offal included in pig and poultry feed could contaminate ruminant feed in mills led to a ban in 1990 of specified bovine offal (SBO) – including catlle brains and spinal cord – in all feed.
“However, there was a failure to give proper thought to the terms of this measure when it was introduced.
The SBO ban was unenforceable and widely disregarded,” the report says.
It was particularly critical of chief veterinary officer Keith Meldrum, who was the one person who should have given the ban more thought.
It said Mr Meldrum should have been more aware of the risks of cross contamination and particularly the possibility that a very small amount of infective material could infect cattle.
The failure to properly enforce the SBO ban meant infected material continued to be recycled form slaughterhouses, through renderers and feed companies, back on to farms.
Thousands more cattle consequently became infected in the early 1990s.
It was eventually realised that half a gram of infected material was sufficient to transmit the disease.
At the same time, the true extent of the epidemic and the level of infection in cattle born after the 1990 was becoming evident.
Regulations were revised and more rigorously enforced as the Meat Hygiene Service took over enforcement duties from local authorities.
This had immediate effect, but came to late to prevent thousands of animals being unnecessarily infected, the report concluded.
BSE report coverage, 26-27 October, 2000: