UK BSE eradication programme
06 Aug 1996 ... from our UK correspondent
This document states:
- mammalian input to fish food IS banned
- The 1988 measures for slaughterhouses were not enforced until 1995, when 50% failed
- Mammalian input is still permitted for cat and dog food
Also, the eradication programme assumed negligible vertical transmission impact and no
re-infection from contaminated environments.
Here is the voluntary scheme Lacey mentioned. This is an attempt to
bypass the 30 month cull agreed with the EU. Most beef farmers could
effectively opt out of the cull as beef herds have a far lower incidence
of BSE than dairy. However, this may be due to the fact that beef cattle
are usually slaughtered at 3 years and the vast majority of cattle going
down with BSE are 4 to 5 years.
3 May 1996 ... The Government announced that proposals have been
issued for consultation for a voluntary scheme under which cattle from
herds that can be identified as low risk on the basis of strict
eligibility criteria may be slaughtered for human consumption over the
age of 30 months . The Mature Beef Assurance Scheme is intended to allow
high quality meat, from specialist, grass-fed herds whose animals mature
later than 30 months, onto the UK market.
Strange that enforcement measures
should suddenly be implemented after 7 years! Possibly they had advance
warning of the BSE to CJD link announced in March 96. SEAC is totally
controlled by MAFF.
Although the UK Government BSE eradication plan for the EU indicated
that mammalian content for fish feed was banned, none of the other
government documentation does.
The NFU (National Farmers Union) is
fragmenting, with the beef farmers coming out for stronger measures
against dairy to strengthen beef prices. This is quite significant
politically as the farming lobby is very influential, its power may
weaken if it splits.
BSE regulations not enforced for seven years
UK Correspondent ... 6 Aug 96
The following table from the UK Government BSE eradication programme for the EU clearly shows that the BSE control regulations introduced in 1988 were not enforced for 7 years. It was not until late 1995 that a compliance monitoring process was instituted for slaughterhouses and initially nearly 50% of inspections failed:
EXTRACT FROM UK BSE ERADICATION PROGRAMME:
(c) State Veterinary Service, Reinforcing SBO/SBM Controls in Slaughterhouses
6.6.13 The SVS carries out regular unannounced visits to all plants handling SBO (now SBM) to monitor their compliance with the controls. The results, since the intensive surveillance programme began in September 1995, taking over from the earlier monitoring arrangements, are as follows:
| Month | # Visits | # Unsatisfactory | %
| September 1995 | 193 | 92 | 48 |
October | 153 | 52 | 34 |
November | 312 | 38 | 12 |
December | 272 | 17 | 6 |
January 1996 | 321 | 16 | 5 |
February | 274 | 17 | 6.2 |
March | 264 | 10 | 3.8 |
April | 269 | 4 | 1.5 |
Totals | 2058 | 246 | 12 | |
Germany threatens tougher ban on beef
by Charles Reiss and Flora Hunter
The Evening Standard ... Monday, 5 August, 1996
GERMANY tightened the screw over the beef crisis today as ministers met in Bonn to agree a tougher line to counter the new threat of BSE transfer from mother to calf. The new infection route, acknowledged by London last week, has already brought loud calls from Germany for a wider slaughter programme and a stricter ban on the sales of British beef. Today, the Bonn government was poised to confirm the tougher line, spelling an end to John Major's stated aim to have most of the sales ban lifted by November.
In Whitehall, officials denied weekend reports that milk is under new scrutiny as a possible carrier of mad cow disease. The Ministry of Agriculture said that claims that new tests were being done to see if milk could be infected were "rubbish". Such tests, said the ministry, had already been carried out for years and the Government saw no reason to change earlier advice that milk is safe to drink.
There was some consolation for Agriculture Minister Douglas Hogg, and for farmers, as the supermarket chains reported that the latest scare did not seem to be deterring shoppers in any large numbers.
Sainsbury's said that, after initial concern, beef sales had gone back up and a Safeway spokesman said: "I think customers tend to believe what scientists tell them rather than what they read in newspaper headlines."
A handful of members of the German parliament and regional politicians called for the sales ban to be extended to cover milk, cheese and yoghurt.
Baerbel Hoehn, minister in North Rhine-Westphalia state, told German radio the European Union had already erred by relaxing its ban on British beef products and should now consider restoring or even tightening its original restrictions.
"We should seriously consider restoring the stricter import ban that used to apply, or possibly extending it to milk products," said the minister, a member of the Green party that is in opposition in Bonn.
Ministers in London hoped and believed, however, that neither the German government nor the EU would take such a hard line. Downing Street said that it would take "some weeks" before a revised slaughter plan, including calves now deemed to be at risk, could be sorted out. There were no plans for any direct contact with the German government in the meantime. Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown said that farmers would continue to suffer as long as information emerged through leaks and the crisis was handled through "government by bungle".
Although the link between BSE and dairy products has been dismissed by the Ministry of Agriculture, other scientists have not ruled out the possibility. If milk did become suspect, it could turn a crisis into a catastrophe with huge losses to the dairy industry.
50,000 more cows face slaughter
The Evening Standard ... Monday, 5 August, 1996
THE PROSPECT of culling calves, following last week's revelations about BSE, will add to the already widespread disarray in the Government's existing slaughter policy, writes Victor Sebestyen. The admission that BSE can be passed from cow to calf has forced a review of plans to eradicate the disease. As many as 50,000 more cows will need to be killed, according to some estimates, in a complicated procedure involving checking calves' birthdates. Changing the culling rules yet again could force a crisis in an overburdened system.
Four months since it became obvious that thousands of cows would have to be killed, slaughterhouses and incinerators are still not geared up to deal with the job effectively. And farmers are furious with the Ministry of Agriculture for chopping and changing its policies and for leaving it unclear how much compensation is available for culled cows. Many farmers are co-operating only half-heartedly or not at all in the slaughter policy.
The BSE eradication plan, agreed with the EU six weeks ago, falls into two parts. First, cows over 30 months old, those thought to be most at risk of getting BSE, have to be killed. The programme, to cull 750,000 beasts this year, began early in May. So far about 250,000 cows have been killed and burned.
A UK Corespondent ... 6 Aug 96
Despite the ongoing BSE crisis, the UK Government persists in prioritising commercial interests above eliminating BSE. Potentially contaminated feed is still legally manufactured for carnivores provided that agricultural feed is not produced in the same mill: presumably for the cat and dog feed industry. Additionally, it seems that as late as 2 qtr 1996 cross contamination of feed in mills was still taking place. This information is derived from an extract from the UK Government BSE eradication programme for the EU:
EXTRACT FROM UK BSE ERADICATION PROGRAMME:
6.9.5. From 29 March 1996 the sale or supply of mammalian meat and bone meal for feeding or for incorporation into feed for any farmed livestock, fish or equine animal was prohibited, as was the incorporation of mammalian meat-and-bone meal into any carnivore diet if livestock feed is produced on the same premises. In addition to the set schedule and in order to ensure compliance with the new legislation, all 160 mills were visited on 29 or 30 March to discuss the implementation of the new legislation and all were visited again between 4 and 30 April to collect samples. Contamination of poultry meat and bone meal with apparent mammalian material was suspected on one premises, samples taken at the time and since have proven to be positive. Investigations into this mill and the supplier of the meat and bone meal are in progress; a prosecution may follow.
Beef farmers call for cull of all herds with
BSE
by Michael Hornsby, Agriculture Correspondent
The Times (UK) ... August 6 1996
BEEF farmers have called for a wide extension of the cattle cull,
including the option of slaughtering entire herds that have had even one
case of "mad cow" disease.
In the first serious rift within the cattle industry, a breakaway group
of beef farmers said that the cull should certainly include the
slaughter of all calves born to cows that have died of BSE. Dairy
farmers are strongly opposed to any wholesale slaughter of herds and
question the need for killing the progeny of BSE cows, despite evidence
that some calves may have caught the disease from their dams.
The Ministry of Agriculture is understood to be considering culling only
the last calves born to cows with BSE, which could involve killing
30,000 more animals than the 147,000 identified as being at special risk
of developing the disease.
The rebel alliance, called Farming Collaboration, yesterday accused the
mainstream National Farmers' Union and the Government of pampering dairy
farmers and ignoring the interests of the beef sector. Fraser MacLeod,
who heads Farming Collaboration, which was set up earlier this year to
represent 20,000 beef farmers in Scotland and the hill regions of
Britain, said: "The single-industry policy adopted by the Government has
worked against our interests. We have tried to lobby through the
National Farmers' Union on behalf of our members. Now we feel we must
put our own case."
Mr MacLeod, who is also director of the Scottish Crofters' Union, added:
"In herds that have had a case of BSE in animals born on the farm, the
option of slaughtering the whole herd should be carefully
considered."
Support for a cull of all offspring of cows with BSE came from John
Corrie, a Tory Euro-MP, who yesterday showed an invited party of 33
German farmers over his family's beef and sheep farm at Auldgirth in
Dumfries and Galloway. One of his visitors, Ole Grubbe, who farms in
Lower Saxony, said they had been impressed by the Gallo way cattle: "The
German public are getting wrong information about BSE and they do not
listen to the good news that beef is safe to eat."
Many beef farmers feel they have been asked to carry the can for dairy
farmers, whom they see as mainly responsible for creating the BSE
problem by the intensive feeding of meat and bonemeal. This practice,
now banned, is thought to have transmitted scrapie, a similar disease in
sheep, to cattle.
Dairy farmers, whose herds have had more than 90 per cent of BSE cases,
have escaped relatively unscathed because they have been able to
continue selling milk and have been compensated for the destruction of
cows older than 30 months which used to go into the food chain.
Specialist beef farmers, 85 per cent of whom have had no BSE cases, have
seen cattle prices drop by up to a third and feel that they have
received inadequate help from the Government and the European Union.
Alastair Davy, who keeps a herd of 85 Limousin beef cows in Swaledale,
North Yorkshire, and is a member of the breakaway alliance, said:
"Farmers are desperately worried about what will happen in the autumn
sales. Many of us have been holding animals back in the hope that prices
would improve. I have never had a case of BSE, but I am looking at
prices of 115p a kg liveweight, compared with 160p last year, when I
need at least 120p to break even. We have got to have a stricter cull
policy and clear this disease out of the national herd if we are to
restore the market."
Last month the Government announced a (UK pounds) 112 million aid
package for beef farmers, partly funded by the EU. This included (UK
pounds) 29 million to offset lower prices, but will cover only cattle
sold before June 30 and amount to no more than (UK pounds) 60 an
animal.
Beef farmers, who say their losses have averaged closer to (UK pounds)
200 an animal, are demanding more aid and want it to continue throughout
the autumn because prices are showing little sign of recovery.
from Peter Bild in Bonn
The Times (UK) ... August 6 1996
GERMANY has announced still tighter controls on British cattle, amid
fears of a collapse in consumer confidence in milk and milk products.
Anti-British feeling has spread among German farmers since a wave of
flag-burning was sparked by Britain's latest admission last Friday that
BSE can be transmitted from cows to calves. Now the new controls mean
that the farmers may not slaughter or sell the last-born offspring of
cows from British herds for which the British authorities cannot provide
a BSE-free guarantee.
German farmers will have to register these cows, which will be monitored
by the authorities. Bonn ministry experts also want the existing
selective cull agreed by Britain to be extended to the last-born
offspring of all cattle from herds where there has been one case of
BSE.
Two states are applying the same rules to all calves from herds without
a BSE-free certificate. Jochen Borchert, the Agriculture Minister, went
out of his way to reassure consumers that milk, cheese and chocolate
were safe. He advised Germans who wanted to be really sure to buy only
German milk products.
The latest admission by Britain was simply the last straw for many
Germans. Jann Dircks, a cattle farmer in Schleswig-Holstein, near the
Danish border, was a speaker at a protest meeting when the Union Jack
was burnt and calls were made for Britain to be thrown out of the
European Union. He has a herd of 180 pure German-bred red whites, but
the price he is getting at slaughter has fallen as sales of beef slumped
20 per cent.
"The British Government is to blame," he said. "They have failed to get
a grip on the problem. Through their inattention and sloppy pursuit of
selfish economic interests, they have ignored the fears of consumers. I
accuse Britain of being selfish, but we have to solve the problem
together in Europe. Chucking the British out isn't the answer."
Anti-British feeling has deep roots in the farming community. "They grab
advantages for themselves and deny them to us," he said. Last year
Britain vetoed financial measures agreed by all other countries to
compensate German farmers for the devaluation of the pound and the
revaluation of the mark, he added.
That anti-British resentment is heightened, he feels, because British
farmers who have their animals culled get 75 per cent of the
compensation out of EU funds.
Thomas Graue, chief reporter of a local newspaper, said that he had
never seen such tension in Schleswig-Holstein, where people are known
for their placid ways: "The basic feeling is that the British have
dumped a huge cowpat on our doorstep."
By Andrew Gimson in Bonn and David Brown, Agriculture Editor
The Daily Telegraph (UK) ... Tuesday August 6 1996
GERMAN farmers, furious at the damage caused to their livelihood by the
beef crisis, have burned the Union flag and some have demanded that
Britain leave the European Union.
As protests grew, with demands for greater cash aid for farmers hit by a
collapse in beef consumption, the German agriculture minister called for
a review of the EU's decision partially to loosen the European ban on
British beef products. Another German politician demanded a Europe-wide
export ban on British milk and dairy products.
Beef consumption in Germany is about 20 per cent down, roughly double
the drop in sales in Britain. "I've never experienced anything like it,"
said Peter Harry Carstensen, the chairman of the German parliament's
agriculture committee, who witnessed the flag-burning demonstration in
his constituency in Schleswig-Holstein. "The atmosphere was really
threatening."
The farmers concerned blame Britain for driving them to the brink of
ruin through the BSE crisis. The prices their calves fetch have
plummeted and the European Union gives them only (UK pounds) 6.30 in
compensation per animal. This is a derisory amount compared with losses
on the sale of 100 calves of between (UK pounds) 9,000 and (UK pounds)
13,000.
Rainer Bruderle, the agriculture minister in Rhineland-Palatinate, said
that there must be more EU money for German farmers, who were "suffering
innocently". He said: "I know these farmers in Schleswig-Holstein and
they say that British farmers get more money for cows with BSE than they
do for beef that is fit to eat.
"These are small family businesses and they feel they're being sent to
the wall by a problem they never caused themselves, and which Britain
isn't taking seriously enough.
'I would never burn a flag myself, but I can see a certain justice in
their case'.
"They feel Britain tried to blackmail Europe by vetoing EU business and
now they want Britain blackmailed back, and told it will be thrown out
of the EU unless it gets serious about dealing with BSE.
"I would never burn a flag myself, but I can see a certain justice in
their case. I know we over-reacted in Germany, but I can't help that.
This is a question of the stomach, not of logic."
Barbel Hohn, the agriculture minister in North-Rhine/Westphalia, called
for a total export ban on British milk and milk products. She said it
could not be ruled out that BSE could be caught through milk.
Jochen Borchert, Germany's agriculture minister, said after a meeting in
Bonn with scientists and representatives of the Lander, "or provinces,
that there must be no lifting of the export ban until all doubts had
been settled.
He said EU scientists must urgently study the new British findings about
the tranmissibility of BSE from cows to calves, and must also establish
whether BSE could be transmitted through milk and milk products. At the
moment, he conceded, there is no evidence that it can be.
Removing all doubts about BSE, as Mr Borchert requires the EU's
scientists to do, is a process that could take years, completely
derailing the timetable for raising the ban that John Major obtained in
Florence.
The Ministry of Agriculture in London insisted that the Government's
emergency controls were working and denied reports that a new
investigation was being carried out into the safety of milk.
Meanwhile, a party of German cattle breeders on a fact-finding mission
to Scotland claimed yesterday that political activists rather than
farmers were behind the flag-burning. They also claimed that demand was
increasing for beef produced in Germany from British breeds.
Listserve Comments on the maternal transmission study
7 Aug 1996
1. The study has not "demonstrated that maternal transmission occurs". It
has demonstrated an association between BSE in calves and BSE in
their dams, but it has not demonstrated the cause of that association. There
is an increased risk of BSE in calves born of dams which developed BSE after
calving (odds ratio about 2.9:1, statistically highly significant) which
could be explained by maternal transmission. It could also be explained by
other factors, particularly inherited genetic susceptibility to BSE combined
with exposure.
2. The figures of (approx.) 15% BSE in calves of BSE dams and 5% in control
calves cannot be combined arithmetically to produce 15% - 5% = 10% maternal
transmission - other possibilities include a) some cases of BSE in the dams
of control calves, and the information about their ages at death is not
available to estimate a rate; this would raise the "maternal transmission
rate" and b) a possible synergistic effect between maternal BSE and
subsequent calf exposure (eg: to feed) which would require a geometric
rather than arithmetic model; ie: maternal BSE increases the risk of BSE in
subsequently exposed calves, by a factor of three, but does not necessarily
cause disease. This would reduce the estimated transmission rate.
3. The absence of large numbers of (reported) cases of BSE in exported
cattle suggests that "maternal transmission" alone is not sufficient for a
10% transmission rate. Continuing exposure, of some form, is a necessary
condition for disease.
4. Paternal status is not declared (presumably unknown) and the results may
reflect some "paternal transmission" in both groups and a high level of
"maternal transmission" in the calves of BSE dams. An excellent discussion
of the transmission of scrapie is given in RM Ridley and HF Baker "The myth
of maternal transmission of spongiform encephalopathy" (British Medical
Journal 1995; 311 (7024): 1071-1075, but also on the BMJ web site at
http://www.bmj.com/bmj/bse/myth.htm). BSE in cattle is not scrapie in sheep,
but the largely genetic maternal and paternal effect in sheep scrapie
produces similar results to those of the current study if it is assumed that
approximately 20% of cows and bulls are BSE genotypes and both case and
control calves were exposed to feed - unfortunately, there are no unexposed
calves born to BSE dams in the study.
5. The reduction of 10% to a "1% field rate" is a best case scenario based
on two untenable postulates. a) transmission is zero either side of a six
month risk period preceding the onset of BSE in the dam (there is scant data
to support it, and zero is improbable!); b) cows produce calves at a uniform
rate for 60 months before developing BSE, with no risk in the first 54
months (they do not, they mature first without calving: the correct
reduction factor is the ratio of calves born in the first 54 months to
calves born in the final 6 months. This ratio is smaller than 10:1).
6. The possibility of maternal transmission has not been embraced in the
control measures or literature. It has been grudgingly accepted as an
improbable, remote possibility. The control measures designed to enhance
consumer confidence were not wholly based on science and will now suffer as
a consequence of the perceived volte face in the latest announcement - as
demonstrated by the possible reversal of the export framework in the EU. One
only has to search for citations of Richard Lacey's publications (eg: "The
BSE epidemic is being maintained by horizontal and vertical transmission")
to see that discussion of vertical transmission has been rejected, often
with considerable vitriol and hostility (also my own experience).
7. I also note that identified genotypes conferring susceptibility to CJD,
which has been more extensively sequenced than BSE, account for only 3-4% of
familial cases of the disease. These same genotypes also account for a
similar number of cases of apparently sporadic CJD. The genetic influence in
BSE is, at best, much more hazy. Some relevant research is:
Hunter et al [1] and Brown et al [2] found uniformity in the alleles they
selected for study and Grobet et al [3] reported no correlation with BSE
susceptibility. However, Neibergs et al [4] report highly significant
differences between BSE cases, relatives of BSE cases and unaffected cattle
indicative of genetic control. Most significantly, Wijeratne and Curnow [5]
report an abundance of relatedness amongst BSE cases, suggestive of
autosomal recessive inheritance.
In addition, non-uniform susceptibility is the best explanation for the
apparent limit (circa 20%) on within-herd rates of BSE cases and for the
exceptionally low rates of BSE in cattle over the age of 7 years. I
personally would put the susceptible proportion of cattle at something like
12-18% of affected herds.
The 1995 progress report additionally provides a graph suggesting an
odds-ratio of 1.9:1 for offspring of cattle affected by BSE - given the
numbers involved, I cannot believe this is non-significant. The
non-significant odds ratio of about 1.3:1 in the study of risk factors
[Hoinville et al, Veterinary Record 1995;136(13):312-318] gave no
confidence that the observation was chance. There may be maternal
transmission, which the current study should elucidate when fully analysed,
but I hope the effect is the result of heritable susceptibility. An elevated
odds-ratio in the siblings of affected cattle might be good news in this
respect, as per [4] - at a guess, how about an excess risk of 2:1 in the
offspring of affected cattle and and an excess of 1.25:1 in the siblings of
affected cattle, irrespective of maternal status?
1. Hunter, Goldmann, Smith and Hope (1994) Frequencies of PrP gene variants
in healthy cattle and cattle with BSE in Scotland. Vet Rec, 135(17):400-403.
2. Brown DR, Zhang et al (1993) Bovine gene allele frequencies determined by
AMFLP and RFLP analysis. Animal Biotechnology 1993;4(1):47-51
3. Grobet L, Vandevenne et al (1994) Polymorphism of the prion protein gene
in Belgian cattle. Annales de Medecin Veterinaire 1994;138(8):581-586
4. Neibergs HL, Ryan et al (1994) Polymerase analysis of the prion gene in
BSE-affected and unaffected cattle. Animal Genetics 1994;25(5):313-317
5. Wijeratne WVS and Curnow RN (1990) A study of the inheritance of
susceptibility to bovine spongiform encephelopathy. Veterinary Record
1990;126(1):5-8
The groups compared were
a. calves born from dams in the late stages of disease
(the majority was born within 5 months of onset of disease
in dams)
b. calves born from dams over 6 years old in which no onset of disease
had been observed.
Group a and b were taken from the same herds.
SEAC has reported preliminary findings with a difference in
frequency of confirmed BSE in the two groups
(15.3 % in group a and 4.8 % in group b)
The difference in frequency is 10.5 %
This is a significant difference, so the first important result is:
Transmission from dam to calf occurs.
If it is assumed that all BSE cases in group b has been caused
by _something else_ than transmission from the dam, the 10.5 %
can be taken as an estimate of the maternal transmission rate, i.e. under
the conditions of the test, 10.5 % of the BSE dams transmitted
the disease to their calves.
This is the background for SEACs figure 10%
(with an estimated confidence interval 5-15 %)
But can we trust the assumption that none of the cases
in group b has been caused by transmission cow to calf?
This assumption seems to me to be equivalent to the assumption,
that a cow which has not shown onset of disease by the age of 6 years
is not carrying the disease.
The 1 % maternal
transmission figure given as an estimate -- under 'in the field'
conditions. IMO it cannot be based on this study alone without becoming
quite speculative, a fact which also SEAC points out.
The great majority of the calves in group a were born less than 5 months,
and none more than 13 months after clinical onset of BSE in the dams.
There is simply no data in this study on calves born by dams
in the earlier stages of disease.
If I understand SEAC correctly, a comparison between transmission rate in
the under 5 month subgroup and the 5-13month subgroup gives a weak
indication that transmission is less frequent in the latter subgroup.
But as this group must be small, the indication must necessarily be weak.
And SEAC indeed says nothing more than: *IF* it can be assumed that
maternal transmission does _only_ occur to a significant degree
in the very latest stages of disease *THEN* the overall risk of transmission
to a calf could be appr. 1 %
To be a little provocative this is very similar to saying that
if it can be assumed that the overall probability of maternal
transmission is low, then the overall probability of maternal
transmission is low.
The above assumes that "within" means "after". Again, this is not clear
in the information in the SEAC report. SEAC does not say "5 months
after onset" but "within 5 months of onset". However in its para 3, it
states
"Thus the study does not provide a good estimate of the risk to
animals born more than 6 months before the onset of BSE in the dam.
However, the findings provide some, albeit limited, evidence that
there is an enhanced risk of maternal transmission in the last 6
months of the BSE incubation".
This might suggest that all or some of the calves in group (a) were
selected for the study, whose dams had shown onset of BSE up to 6
months _after_ giving birth. And what about the 13 months? Does
"within" mean "before" in all or some of the calves? That seems to be
implied without saying so.
That led me to query the matter with CVL this morning, and they
confirm that all but three of the calves in group (a) were born either
up to 5 months _before_ or 6-13 months _before_ their dams' onset of
BSE.
It becomes apparent that SEAC were
in effect trying to extrapolate backwards through the whole duration
of an assumed 60 month incubation, from results in the last two
periods at the end of the incubation period. Attempting to extend a
graph when you have only two points plotted is unsound.
Even taking account of the large case control study [Hoinville L J et
al (1995) "An investigation of risk factors for cases of BSE born
after the introduction of the feed ban", Veterinary Record, Vol 136,
312-318]., which did not reveal significant risk of maternal
transmission, the grounds for SEAC's 1% estimate are inadequate.
While some reduction from the 10% found in
the trial may be warranted in terms of "in the field", the 1% figure
estimated in the SEAC report is inadequately substantiated
speculation.