French blame 'mad cow' on Britain

A carcass is inspected at a meat market, Paris

PARIS, France -- France may widen the ban on feeding meat and bone meal to pigs and chickens as it blames Britain for behaving "irresponsibly" in the past.

French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet took a swipe at British industry as she called for an immediate moratorium on feeding meat and bone meal to pigs and chickens as a precaution against any further spread.

"Twenty years ago, British industrialists decided cows had ceased to eat grass and could be fed anything...today, we are paying for the consequences of that irresponsible attitude," she said on Saturday.

"Everyone wants the government to take charge and I say we should have an immediate moratorium on the use of meat and bone meal in feeding pigs and chickens while we await answers from health authorities," said Voynet, who is also head of France's Greens party.

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"A moratorium of several months could be handled without difficulty. A definitive ban would be tougher because we would need to destroy more than a million tonnes of meat and bone meal and we do not now have the capacity to do this..." she said.

French newspaper Le Monde quoted an internal circular signed by a senior official in Voynet's office as estimating the cost of a total withdrawal of meat and bone meal in France at five billion francs ($656 million) per year.

Farm Minister Jean Glavany said on Friday that a ban on meat and bone meal was "unavoidable" as a precaution against the spread of mad cow disease.

The French Government was under pressure this week to ban the meals as a result of a mad cow disease food scare that has caused beef sales to plunge.

The use of meat and bone meal has been banned in cattle feed in France since 1990. But most French cases of mad cow disease are believed to be the result of cattle eating feed containing such meals that were intended for pigs or chickens.

A European Union-wide ban on animal feed containing animal and bone products has been suggested by Portugal.

Concern in the EU has been growing since French supermarkets disclosed last month that they had sold meat potentially contaminated with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Human consumption of contaminated beef products is thought to be the most likely way BSE crosses into humans as CJD.

Spain this week banned the import of breeding cattle from France and Irish cows. Italy's Agriculture Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said on Friday Rome was ready to block beef imports from France should fears grow about BSE contamination.

Russia, Poland and Hungary have already restricted beef imports from France.

The Swiss Red Cross is to implement a ban on blood donations from people living in Britain between 1980 and 1996 -- when the beef scare originated and where people have died from variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, the human form of mad cow disease.

The EU has already banned animal and bone meal from cattle feed on the grounds that feed containing BSE-contaminated ingredients is believed to be one way of transmitting the fatal brain-wasting disease.

Portugal wants to extend the ban to all animal feed, at a meeting of the Standing Veterinary Committee called by Portugal to discuss Spain's move.

"The proposal will be made to all member countries, to ban using animal and bone meal in all animal feed, not just for cows," a spokesman for the Portuguese agriculture ministry said.

The spokesman said Portugal had called the meeting primarily to seek a common position on BSE in France.

The country enforced a unilateral blanket ban on animal and bone meal two years ago, and has repeatedly said an EU embargo on its own beef exports due to BSE levels is unfair because the country has more stringent animal safety regulations than most of its European partners.

France plans to ban sweetbreads, the gourmet product made from a cow's thymus gland, for one year as a precaution against CJD.

The ban concerns cows born after May 1, 1999. Thymuses of cows born before that date were banned earlier.

French Farm Minister Glavany conceded that France's coalition government had underestimated how a rising number of mad cow cases in France would affect public opinion.

Beef prices have plunged at meat markets around France, and one slaughterhouse in Quimper, in the eastern Finistere region, which lost 65 percent of its business within a few days, may close its doors next week, France-Info radio reported.

The scare is spreading, with more than 100 schools in Brussels temporarily removing beef from school menus. More than 90 cases of BSE have been detected in France this year, compared with 31 last year, but Glavany blamed the change on new testing procedures.

In Italy, Scanio said a special committee was monitoring the situation around the clock, but he says beef sold in Italy is safe because it is scanned carefully.

Reuters contributed to this report.

French farm minister rejects animal slaughter
November 10, 2000
Beef bans widen as 'mad cow' scare widens
November 8, 2000

Human BSE Foundation
French Agriculture Ministry

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