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 The French prime minister, Lionel Jospin, bowed to mounting
public panic and the populist savvy of President Jacques Chirac yesterday
by banning beef on the bone and suspending the use of animal-based meal
in all livestock feed.
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- The French prime minister, Lionel Jospin, bowed to mounting
public panic and the populist savvy of President Jacques Chirac yesterday
by banning beef on the bone and suspending the use of animal-based meal
in all livestock feed.
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- Among a raft of measures aimed at calming consumer fears
over mad cow disease, Mr Jospin also announced random tests on cattle entering
the food chain and a tripling of funds for research into BSE, linked to
the fatal brainwasting ailment in humans, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease.
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- "The government has decided to suspend the use of
meat and bone meal in feed for pigs, chickens, fish as well as domestic
animals," the prime minister said. "This temporary and general
ban appears technically possible and acceptable from a public health standpoint."
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- A decision on a permanent ban on animal-based meals,
a step taken by Britain in 1996, would be made once the national food safety
agency, Afssa, had assessed the possible risk associated with them, he
said, probably in about three to four months' time.
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- Aware that the drastic new precautions might serve only
to fan French fears, Mr Jospin sought to reassure consumers about the spread
of BSE and about food safety in general, saying there was "no scientific
proof at present to suggest that eating beef or drinking milk poses a health
risk".
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- But he added that cote de boeuf and several other prized
French cuts of beef were being banned because the infectious agent that
causes BSE could exist in the bone that comes with them, despite government
precautions.
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- Beef sales have plunged by as much as 50% in France and
school meal services throughout the country have withdrawn the suspect
meat from canteen menus since it emerged last month that several large
supermarket chains had unknowingly sold potentially infected cuts.
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 Consumer concern has been further fuelled by a sharp
increase in the number of cattle found to have been suffering from mad
cow disease, which under a more thorough and systematic screening system
has jumped from 31 in all of 1999 to more than 90 so far this year.
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- According to a poll published this weekend in the Journal
du Dimanche, 70% of the French are worried about animal-based feeds, which
were banned for cattle in France in 1990, and nearly 80% want an immediate
ban.
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- Most French cases of BSE have been traced to "cross-contamination"
- cattle that have been fed, either deliberately or accidentally, with
animal-based meals intended for livestock like pigs or chickens.
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- The moratorium on the use of meat and bone meal marks
a political defeat for the prime minister, who described the panic gripping
French con sumers as "a national psychosis" and favoured what
he termed the "more calm and rational approach" of waiting for
Afssa's expert opinion before taking such a drastic step.
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- Last week he underlined the major problem of banning
the materials, saying France would be forced to incinerate three times
as many animal carcasses as it does now: the pollutants like dioxin that
entered the atmosphere as a result would represent a more serious health
hazard than the original feed, he said.
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- But Mr Jospin was outmanoeuvred by Mr Chirac, who grasped
perfectly the mood of the French public last week and, to the prime minister's
fury, publicly demanded an immediate ban on animal-based meals. The Green
party and the Communists, both members of the ruling Socialist-led coalition,
subsequently joined the call, leaving Mr Jospin no choice.
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- The decision is not without consequences. France produces
around 430,000 tonnes of meat and bone meal each year, and French newspapers
put the cost of banning the products at between £300m and £500m.
Some 870,000 tonnes of feed will have to be stocked and incinerated, and
France will need to increase dramatically its imports of soy to replace
the banned protein-rich products.
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- Mr Jospin said Paris would also ask the European commission
in Brussels to examine how domestic output of oilseeds and other sources
of vegetable protein could be boosted.
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- That, however, could risk triggering a new trade row
with the United States by violating the 1992 Blair House accords, which
limit the amount of oilseeds the European Union is allowed to plant.
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- Useful links:
- http://www.bse.org.uk
- BSE Inquiry
- http://www.bsereview.org.uk
- Food Standards Agency BSE Review
- http://www.maff.gov.uk/animalh/bse
- MAFF BSE site
- http://www.doh.gov.uk/cjd
- Department of Health BSE/CJD site
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- http://www.humanbse.org.uk
- Human BSE Foundation - voluntary support group
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- http://sparc.airtime.co.uk/bse
- BSE news and research
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
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