Germany to make BSE testing mandatory

Even beef reared on organic farms may not be safe from BSE

BERLIN, Germany -- German officials are to introduce mandatory beef testing in an attempt to calm public fears over the escalating European mad cow crisis.

They are also checking whether pastures spread the disease and may possibly burn up huge stocks of animal feed in power plants.

Meanwhile Germany's lower house of parliament approved an immediate blanket ban on meat and bonemeal feed after the first German cows tested positive last week for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Feeding animal meal to cattle has been banned in Germany since 1994, but officials want to help regain public confidence by extending the ban to other animals raised for slaughter.

IN-DEPTH Mad cow disease: Counting the cost   •  The cross-species killer   •  What's off the menu?   •  EU beef consumption   •  BSE cases in Europe   •  Geographical BSE risk   •  One family's nightmare   •  Timeline: Crisis unfolds   •  Recent news   •  Audio/video archive   •  Message board   •  Related sites

Earlier on Thursday scientists took soil samples from the farm where Germany's first case of mad cow disease was discovered in an attempt to see if the disease can be contracted through grazing.

The tests were taken on Thursday after Environment Minister Juergen Trittin warned that the agents which cause BSE might be able to survive and multiply in the ground.

Scientists from the agriculture ministry in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein took the soil samples from a field at the farm of Peter Lorenzen where the first German case of mad cow disease was discovered last Friday.

The rest of Lorenzen's herd of 169 cattle was slaughtered and, of 32 BSE tests undertaken so far, all have turned out negative, sources in the state government said. Results of the remaining tests of brain tissue were due on Friday.

The soil samples were taken to try to establish whether prions -- the proteins which cause BSE -- in an infected cow's excrement can survive in the ground and later transmit the disease to another animal.

The link has not been proven, however, and no method for analysing the samples has yet been set.

Trittin, a leader of the environmentalist Greens party, issued his warning this week, citing an official study which said prions might also find their way into the ground via fertiliser containing bonemeal from infected cattle.

The study, published earlier this year, said the agent that causes scrapie, a sheep disease believed to have been the original source of BSE, could survive in the ground for up to three years.

Trittin said any fields where cattle had been diagnosed with BSE should be quarantined for three years.

The federal Agriculture Ministry also said it would rent the fields in Lorenzen's farm, near the northern town of Flensburg, to conduct its own research on the possible grazing link to BSE.

"This is all new to me," Lorenzen said, "I don't know whether this can prove anything."

Martin Wille, head of the farm ministry's BSE crisis team, said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would discuss with regional leaders who would pay the 350 million marks ($155 million) cost of destroying stocks of animal-based feeds.

The European Commission on Wednesday urged a European Union-wide ban on such feed and proposed other tough measures aimed at rebuilding public confidence in beef.

Consumers have been unsettled by fears that eating beef could lead to an outbreak in Germany of the fatal human equivalent of BSE, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which has killed over 80 people in Britain and two in France.

One scientist sought to calm fears that even beef from cattle reared on organic farms -- as opposed to intensive farming methods using meat and bone meal as a food supplement -- might not now be safe.

"Of course there is a certain risk. But to panic and say we want to quarantine our fields would be going too far," Hans-Wilhelm Doerr, head of Germany's association for fighting viral illnesses, told North German Radio.

Doerr said experience in other countries hit by BSE had shown that the best approach was to slaughter herds affected by the disease.

The Association of Danish Vetenarians said on Thursday that EU measures to try and eradicate BSE will not work, but instead will only provide the consumers with a false sense of security.

"Mad cow disease can only be detected in cows, just before they are becoming sick or if they are sick. But the animal could have been infected several years ago, and that won't be detected," said the Chairman for the ADV Per Thorup, to the daily newspaper Politiken.

Ritt Bjerregaard, Minister for Food and former EU Commissioner, has also rejected the proposal: "The Commission has failed to provide us with information on how we in Denmark should be able to test as many as 250,000 animals next year."

According to the Ministry of Food, Danish authorities only have the capacity of testing a maximum of 20,000 cows a year.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

Germany halts meat-based animal feed
November 29, 2000
EU concern over BSE beef bans
November 28, 2000
European governments blamed for BSE crisis
November 27, 2000
Demands for mandatory tests across EU for BSE
November 25, 2000
Germany calls for action over BSE
November 24, 2000

The BSE Inquiry Homepage
The Greens home page in German
German Centre for Documentation and Information in Agriculture
European Union

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.