Mad cow fears prompt German meat bans

LONDON, England -- The Netherlands and Belgium have joined Austria by issuing warnings over German beef after the discovery of mad cow disease there.

The Dutch Health Ministry has advised the public not to eat German meat for the time being and local media in Belgium has reported that the government ordered the withdrawal of all German beef from shops.

Meanwhile, Germany on Saturday has rejected a charge that it hampered efforts to address the spread of the disease with confusing policies and poor excuses.

European Union Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper that Germany had made the EU's work "not any easier by trying, as usual, to assign the blame elsewhere."

Fischler added "there has been quite a bit of confusion" in Germany over the spread of mad cow disease, where panic has swept the country that until last month believed it was immune to the brain-wasting disease because of its quality controls.

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Martin Wille, Germany's deputy farm minister, dismissed Fischler's charges and said government officials had worked quickly and efficiently to cooperate with the EU.

He blamed the EU Commission for delaying follow-up information Germany requested.

"It is odd that the EU Commission, despite repeated queries, delayed releasing the report for many weeks and thus left German authorities in the dark," Wille said in a statement.

In the latest escalation of the mad cow crisis in Europe, five cows have been found in Germany in recent weeks with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name for the disease.

They are the first German cases of the disease that has cut a swathe through beef industries in Britain, France, Ireland and Portugal and the German health ministry responded by advising Germans against consuming meat products that might contain beef.

Belgian radio RTBF reported on Friday that Health and Environment Minister Magda Aelvoet had advised Belgian citizens to avoid all German beef products.

The move follows a decision by Austria to seek a similar ban.

The European Union's food safety commissioner, David Byrne, has urged Germany to withdraw from export certain meat products such as sausages that might harbour mad cow disease.

On Friday the World Health Organization (WHO) announced fresh moves to address global concerns over mad cow disease.

The WHO expressed concern about what it called "exposure worldwide" to mad cow disease and its fatal human form, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).

The United Nations health agency said it would convene a major meeting of experts and officials from all regions on the neuro-degenerative diseases striking cattle and humans.

Dr. Maura Ricketts, of the WHO's animal and food-related public health risks division, said on Friday: "Our concern is that there was sufficient international trade in meat and bone meal and live cattle that there actually has been exposure worldwide already."

Since 1986, 180,000 BSE cases have been confirmed in British cattle, with 1,300 to 1,400 cases elsewhere in Europe -- all but several dozen cases in four countries (France, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland), according to WHO.

Small numbers of cases have been reported in Canada, Argentina, Italy and Oman, but in each of these countries this was only in imported British bovine, it added.

In all, 87 cases of vCJD have been reported in Britain, three in France and one in Ireland, according to the agency.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

Europe warns Germany over BSE
December 22, 2000
Switzerland acts to curb BSE
December 20, 2000
Summit considers BSE crackdown
December 4, 2000
EU proposes tougher feed controls
November 29, 2000

Germany's Federal Government
European Union
World Health Organization
UK BSE Inquiry

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