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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 Dec 2002

Vol. 559 No. 2

Written Answers. - Food Safety Standards.

Ruairí Quinn

Question:

69 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food his views on recently published research which points to new links between BSE and sporadic CJD in humans; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25755/02]

I am familiar with reports in relation to experimental work with mice carried out by Professor John Collinge and colleagues from the Medical Research Council's Prion Unit in London that BSE may be linked to a "type two" pattern of CJD consistent with sporadic CJD. I am aware that there is already a measure of debate as to how the results to date of such work might be interpreted and applied in practice. Experts in my Department and elsewhere in the EU continue to take a close interest in this and all work which can assist in improving our understanding of how the BSE prion works.

However, the primary focus remains the practical implementation of public and animal health controls which are intended to protect public health, provide the necessary assurances to in relation to the safety of Irish beef to consumers at home and abroad, and to control and eradicate BSE in the bovine population. While I am willing to make adjustments to controls where new validated scientific evidence, or operational experience, so requires, there has been no suggestion from the EU's Scientific Steering Committee that the work carried out by Professor Collinge in this field warrants any change to the controls currently operating in the EU. It is unlikely that such work would have any implications for a system designed to prevent in the first instance infective material entering either the human food or animal feed chains.
Current controls in Ireland go beyond the minimum required by EU law. These controls include,inter alia, whole herd depopulation, tracing and culling of birth cohorts and progeny of BSE-infected animals, a ban on feeding meat and bonemeal to all farmed animals intended for human consumption, compulsory notification of the disease, ante and post mortem inspections at all meat plants, the removal of SRM from the human food and animal feed chains, and a comprehensive active surveillance programme among all cattle over 30 months of age and all casualty cattle over 24 months of age in meat plants, and all fallen cattle over 24 months of age in knackeries. My Department will continue to rigorously enforce these controls.
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