December 2, 2004

UK To Introduce New Mad Cow Testing Regime

The U.K. will drop its Over Thirty Month, or OTM, rule for cattle during the second half of 2005 and replace it with a regime of testing for Bovine Spongiform Encepalothopy, or BSE, the U.K. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said Wednesday.

The OTM rule was introduced in response to food safety concerns regarding the presence of cattle infected with BSE entering the food chain. The rule requires the ban of all rendered cattle over thirty months of age from human consumption.

"An essential first step will be the establishment of a robust and independently audited testing regime," Defra said in a statement. "Only cattle for which there is a negative test result will be sold for consumption."

Defra said roughly 750,000 cattle were rendered and incinerated every year as a result of the OTM rule. Cattle born on or before Aug. 1, 1996 will remain permanently excluded from the food chain.

"This government has always put protection of public health at the forefront when dealing with BSE," U.K. Health Secretary John Reid said in a statement. "Having weighed up all the factors and taken careful account of the advice of our experts, we now consider it appropriate to being a managed transition towards a system of BSE testing which will replace the OTM rule."

The removal of specified risk material, which is estimated to remove over 99% of risk in cattle, has been and will continue to be rigorously enforced by the Meat Hygiene Service, Defra said.

The other main control is the ban on feeding animal protein to all farmed livestock, which has been in effect since Aug. 1, 1996.

It said the incidence of BSE has been declining since its peak in 1992 and has now fallen by over 99%, giving way for the Food Standards Agency to advise that current control measures are no longer proportionate to the risk of BSE infection.

"Confirmation of medium risk status would be a real breakthrough for the U.K. beef industry," said Tim Bennett, President of the U.K. National Farmers Union. "It should enable us to export beef to other E.U. member states under exactly the same conditions that they use."