Food agency rejects BSE sheep call

29 August 2001



Food agency rejects BSE sheep call

By FWi staff

THE Food Standards Agency has rejected calls for it introduce new consumer safeguards which assume that BSE is present in sheep.

An agency spokesman said it had no plans to change measures in place despite criticism from Dr Richard Kimberlin, a former government advisor.

Dr Kimberlin said the agency should take a precautionary approach and extend a ban of offals to include tonsils, sheep intestines and large lymph glands.

But the agency spokesman said there was no new scientific evidence to undermine the existing safeguards, reports The Independent.

The agency would not therefore be extending the ban on the consumption of certain sheep offal to include other tissues that could be at risk of BSE.

The agency hopes to have clearer evidence of whether sheep can have BSE by autumn when tests on 150 sheep that died of brain disease have been analysed.

Preliminary results have so far failed to detect signs of the disease.

But critics remain concern about the programme claiming that tests are only being carried out on a tiny fraction of the national flock.

• Advisor warns over BSE in sheep, FWi, 28 August, 2001
• Scientists link BSE to infected sheep, FWi, 27 April 2001
• BSE-in-sheep scare concerns farmers, 3 August 2001
• Scrapie named as BSE cause, FWi, 23 July, 2001