X-Message-Number: 15581
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: "UN warns BSE risk could be global"
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 08:30:15 -0800

[As I recall, Mike Darwin wrote an article for _Cryonics_ magazine in the 
late 1980's predicting that spongiform encephalopathies would get out of 
control.-- MP]

From:



http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3N5SSKXIC&live=true&tagid=IXLC078IH7C&Collid=Any


UN warns BSE risk could be global
By James Blitz in Rome and Michael Mann in London
Published: February 7 2001 22:08GMT | Last Updated: February 8 2001 00:48GMT



Mad cow disease could spread to as many as 100 countries across the globe 
and should not be dismissed as purely a European phenomenon, the United 
Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned on Wednesday.

As the European Union struggles to calm consumer panic that has seen beef 
consumption fall by more than a quarter since October, the FAO urged 
countries that imported meat and bone meal (MBM) or cattle from the EU to 
ban the feeding of MBM and increase surveillance to try to eradicate the 
disease.

"Our research suggests that at least 100 countries are at risk from BSE 
because of cattle or meat meal imported from Europe during the 1980s," said 
Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO.

"The regions that imported large quantities of meat meal from Britain during 
this period are the near-East, eastern Europe and Asia."

The FAO's warning will send shockwaves through the beef industry in 
countries that still see BSE as an exclusively European problem.

The introduction of a cattle testing programme across the EU has uncovered 
the first cases of the disease in countries such as Germany, which long 
claimed to be BSE-free.

The FAO is reluctant to spell out the individual countries that might be at 
risk. But Andrew Speedy of the FAO noted that countries like Egypt, Iran, 
Iraq and India imported MBM from the UK during the 1980s and have intensive 
livestock industries. "So that is a situation we are worried about," he 
said.




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