Britain steps up madcow checks

Britain's Food Safety Agency has introduced temporary checks on all German beef

LONDON, England -- Britain's food safety watchdog is stepping up checks on German beef imports after consignments were suspected of breaching BSE controls.

The Food Safety Agency said it was investigating two consignments of German meat that breached Europe-wide measures imposed by the EU to curb Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

The FSA said its inspectors are examining beef consignments in Northern Ireland and Eastbourne, southern England, where banned spinal cord had been found on Friday still attached to carcases.

Spinal cord is one of the specified risk materials (SRMs) that must be removed as part of the slaughter process to try to prevent mad cow disease causing the human form of BSE, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

"This is material that shouldn't be there. We are asking Europe to flag up the importance of the controls being enforced forcefully," an FSA spokesman said.

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The Agency said it had also imposed 100 percent examination of all German beef instead of spot checks following earlier breaches of safety regulations.

The latest breach came to light on Thursday in one of 217 hindquarters imported into the UK through Dover.

The consignment was exported from Germany and accompanying documentation stated that the beef was from animals under 30 months old.

The discovery was made at the same plant which earlier in the week received a German hindquarter containing two inches of spinal cord. The two consignments were from different sources in Germany.

Agency officials in Northern Ireland are also examining part of a consignment of fore and hind quarters of beef from the Republic of Ireland, which appeared to contain spinal cord or residual spinal cord.

The Over Thirty Month rule applies to imported beef, as well as home-produced beef, and means that meat from cattle aged over 30 months is prohibited from entering the human food chain.

Cattle registered under the Beef Assurance Scheme, and meat imports from 14 countries which are either BSE-free or at very low risk of BSE., are except from the rule.

Despite the breaches of safety regulations, the FSA spokesman said he did not expect German beef to be banned.

"At the end of the day it has to be put into context. I think they have had eight cases of BSE. In our time we have had almost 180,000."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Food Standards Agency
U.K. Ministry of Agriculture
Human BSE Foundation
EU BSE measures

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