BSE updates: 16 Dec 2000

[1]
Date: Tue 12 Dec 2000 14:21:45 -0500
From: Marjorie P. Pollack, M.D.
Source: AP Online [edited]


TOKYO: In a preemptive step against mad cow disease, Japan on Tuesday [12
Dec 2000] banned use of animals from 28 countries around the world as
material for making medicines and cosmetics. Tokyo also banned the import
of intestines of animals for making sausages from some countries in which
animals are suspected of being infected with the disease.

There have been no reports of mad cow disease in Japan. Since 1996, Japan
has banned the use of cattle from Britain for producing pharmaceutical
products. Japan added 28 nations to its ban in the latest move. "We are
taking new regulations as a preemptive measure," said Daisaku Sato, an
official of the pharmaceutical and medical safety bureau with the Ministry
of Health and Welfare. Under the new rule, Japanese makers of medical
products, medical supplies, and cosmetics are banned from using carcasses
of ruminants such as sheep, goats, and pigs from mainly European nations,
Sato said.

Beside Britain, the nations include France, Switzerland, Ireland, Oman,
Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Yugoslavia and Germany. The use
of animal organs including eyes and intestines, which are deemed a high
risk of being infected with mad cow disease, will also not be permitted,
Sato said. So far, 2 people in France and 80 in Britain have died from the
disease; 89 people across the 15-nation European Union have been infected.

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[2]
Date: Wed 13 Dec 2000 10:53:27 +0300
From: Shamsudeen Fagbo
Source: Arab News, 12 Dec 2000 [edited]


DUBAI: The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in the UAE has banned
imports of cattle fodder made from animal protein, newspapers reported
yesterday [12 Dec 2000]. The move has been taken to ensure the safety of
cattle being raised in the country for slaughter and public consumption.

Abdullah Sultan Abdullah, head of the Vet Quarantine Section at the
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, said, "Cattle-based dry processed
food which may have been manufactured from animal protein imported from
non-Muslim countries, or any country which does not follow the Islamic
Shariah in slaughtering animals, has been banned."

--
Dr. Shamsudeen Fagbo,DVM


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[3]
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:19:04
From: M. Cosgriff
Source: News media [edited]



TOKYO: Japan announced a total ban on animal feed made from European Union
meat and bone meal in an effort to prevent entry of mad cow disease into
the country, a Japanese agriculture ministry official said Wednesday [13
Dec 2000]. The move follows the 4 Dec 2000 meeting of EU agriculture
ministers, who issued a minimum 6-month ban on the use and import of
livestock feed containing meat and bone meal.

"Although there are views that our current measures are effective, the ban
will be imposed as a precaution," he said. Animal feed made from meat and
bone meal is believed to be the primary transmission route for bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Japan currently bans
imports of beef and non heat-treated cattle feeds of meat from countries
where the disease has been reported. However, shipments will now be
prohibited from any EU country, even those with no reported BSE
cases. Tokyo has also prohibited incoming shipments (including
heat-treated feed) made of meat from Britain, where the mad cow crisis
originated.

Another agriculture ministry official said animal-based feed from the EU
can be replaced by feed from other regions such as Latin America and
Australia - or vegetable-based feed from EU. The ban comes at a time when
use of EU meat and bone meal is on the rise in Japan, according to Yutaka
Kunugi of the agriculture ministry's commercial feed division. From Jan
2000 through Oct 2000, Japan imported roughly 48 500 tons of EU meal,
mainly from Denmark and Italy, which could be used as either animal feed or
fertilizer. That accounts for about 30 percent of the total of 162 231
tons imported from around the world. In 1999, a total of 190 314 tons was
imported, with only 19 607 tons, or about 10 percent, originating from the
EU nations. Japan on Tuesday imposed a ban on the use of medical
ingredients derived from cattle from 29 nations, further tightening its
measures against the potential spread of mad cow disease. As a further
precaution, the Health and Welfare Ministry decided to halt the use of
products (including medical ingredients) which were made from the body
parts of ruminants, such as cows, sheep and goats.

******
[4]
Date: Tues 12 Dec 2000
From: Marjorie P. Pollack
Source: The St. Petersburg Times


MOSCOW - With jitters over mad cow disease sweeping Europe, Russians were
jarred this week when the fatal disease appeared to have struck close to
home. Ukraine's Emergency Situations Ministry (ESM) announced Thursday [7
Dec 2000?] that 2 cows infected with BSE had died in the village of Simonov
in the Rovno region. Ukraine is Russia's main supplier of beef, providing
about 70 percent of the market, according to the Russian Meat Union.

An employee with the Rovno regional headquarters of the ESM, Col. Viktor
Simonyuk, said that it was unclear how the cows had become infected. "We
are currently trying to find a reason for what happened," said
Simonyuk. "We must introduce quarantines, vaccines and screen all cows for
the presence of the dangerous disease."

However, other Ukrainian authorities questioned the ESM's assessment,
saying the region did not even have the resources needed to detect the
disease. "Our [ESM] has got something wrong," said Alexander Kostuk, the
head doctor at the Rovno veterinarian department. Valentina Titorenko, a
deputy head at the Agriculture Ministry, added that "2 cows did indeed die
from a form of rabies, but this was the normal kind, the kind that affects
foxes and dogs."

While fears about mad cow disease have wreaked havoc on European food
markets, there have been no recorded cases of it in Russia. Russian
officials said that it is very difficult to find out whether the disease
has crossed into Russia. "It's just that many Russian and Ukrainian vets
do not have the means to diagnose BSE," said Viktor Yatskin at the Russian
Meat Union. European experts believe that there is a link between the
disease and the use of ground bone in animal feed, of which Russia imported
117 967 tons last year, according to State Customs Committee data. Russian
Meat Union chairman Musheg Mamikonyan said the feed is mostly used for
pigs, while cattle are fed hay or pasture grass. Yatskin disagreed. "In
Russia, bone powder has traditionally been used to feed all animals," he said.

[This situation appears to be rife with speculation, as this report lacks
enough specifics to convince me one way or another. If there is any
disagreement over the causative agent, I would definitively NOT favor the
guy who wants to vaccinate his way out of this situation. There is no
substitute for getting an accurate diagnosis, and we would certainly like
to get one. - Mod.PC]

******
[5]
Date: 13 Dec 2000 2:49 PM EST
From: Marjorie P. Pollack
Source: Reuters Online [edited]


LONDON: People in France were more at risk of eating beef contaminated with
mad cow disease this year [2000] than their British neighbors, new research
released on Wednesday said. A risk assessment by a British scientist at
Imperial College in London shows that more infected cattle were slaughtered
for consumption this year in France than in Britain.

"It shows that the number of late-stage infected animals, which would be
the ones to be potentially the most infectious, was actually higher,
considerably higher in France, than in Britain this year," Dr. Christl
Donnelly said in a telephone interview. She has been closely involved with
the British epidemic while working at Imperial College since 1996. She was
previously head of the statistics unit monitoring the disease at the
Wellcome Trust Center at Oxford University. While one or 2 infected
British cattle were killed for consumption in 2000, either 24 or 49 such
animals were slaughtered in France, depending on assumptions about
under-reporting, she added.

But Donnelly, whose research is published in the science journal Nature,
said it should be kept in mind that there are about twice as many cows in
France as in Britain. Despite the increased risk this year of eating
tainted beef, the overall epidemic in France is just a fraction of what it
was in Britain.

French consumers have been alarmed by the steep increase in the number of
reported cases of the brain-wasting disease in French herds. Consumer
panic ensued after 3 French supermarkets revealed in October that they had
sold beef from a herd potentially contaminated with BSE. According to
French government statistics, 215 animals have been confirmed with BSE
since 1991. By Donnelly's calculations 1200 animals were infected since
mid-1987, assuming that case reporting is complete. So far, at least 80
people in Britain and 2 in France have died from the human equivalent of
mad cow disease, a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which is
linked to eating contaminated beef. Although Britain has a higher
incidence of BSE, restrictions on the ages of animals that can be eaten are
more stringent in Britain than in France. "We don't actually eat older
animals," said Donnelly.

Last week the European Union approved a plan to buy and destroy cattle aged
over 30 months that have not been tested for BSE. It also issued a ban on
all meat-based animal feed. Donnelly, who has worked on the mad cow
epidemic since 1996, used information from the French Ministry of
Agriculture and Fisheries and data from the British epidemic in her risk
assessment. Her calculations show that the risk of infection of French
meat fell sharply from 1988 to 1991 and then gradually rose to
1996. However, the top-range estimate of infected cattle in France (about
7000 since mid-1987) is much lower than the 900 000 in Britain. "That
alone gives you an order of magnitude," said Donnelly.

--
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