Food frights mount in Europe

Foot-and-mouth outbreak is latest in a spate of European food scares

By CNN's Douglas Herbert

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain's foot-and-mouth crisis is the latest food scare to confound farmers across Europe.

The industry is still coming to terms with another scourge -- bovine spongiform ecephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

Beef consumption slumped by 27 percent in the 15 member states of the European Union in the final quarter of last year, with Greece reporting the sharpest drop, about 50 percent.

An EU directive issued earlier this year requires all non-BSE tested cattle over 30 months to be destroyed - a measure that could affect up to two million animals.

CNN.com Europe More news from our Europe edition     ALSO Europe battles foot-and-mouth    IN-DEPTH Foot-and-mouth: Fear and slaughter   •  Disease timeline   •  Q&A on the disease   •  Humans test negative   •  Interactive map   •  Global incidents   •  Key players   •  News search   •  Audio/video archive

The directive has stretched countries' ability to cope, provoked calls from farmers for more compensation, and led to the threat of greater backlogs of cattle carcasses tagged to be burned.

Now European consumers are likely to be even more nervous.

In the past few years, they have had to react to health warnings ranging from salmonella to e-coli and listeria contamination.

In 1999, the discovery of cancer-causing dioxin in food products in Belgium led many countries, including the U.S., to temporarily halt imports of Belgian butter, meat, eggs, fatty beef and pork and by-products from both Belgium and the EU.

Singapore refused to import Belgian, French and Dutch pork and poultry.

Hong Kong also barred the importation of meat and dairy products from Germany. The Belgian food industry said at the time the crisis cost the country $500 million.

ALSO In-depth: Mad cow disease

In another scare linked to Belgium, Coca-Cola recalled 2.5 million bottles of soft drinks that originated in two Belgian factories after scores of children complained of stomach aches, nausea and headaches after drinking the product.

Coke subsequently apologised, but a spokesman for the company said at the time that tests had failed to turn up anything toxic in the beverages.

Food scares have often crossed the Atlantic, for instance when Europeans slapped a ban on imports of U.S. beef treated with growth hormones. The U.S. retaliated by imposing punitive tariffs on a range of European food products.

Even without BSE or foot-and-mouth disease, Europeans were already digesting the debate over the safety of genetically modified foods.

The fallout over gene-altered foods such as corn, rapeseed and soy has prompted many supermarkets to take a pre-emptive strike by voluntarily pulling such products from their shelves.

Some of the worst frights, however, have been provoked by BSE. Last year, just as Britain was hoping the worst of its mad cow crisis was over, France announced that potentially tainted beef may have wound up on supermarket shelves.

Britain's foot-and-mouth outbreak follows a hard-hitting British Government inquiry into the genesis of the BSE crisis.

Now the British farming industry is reeling from another staggering blow.

Europe cull to fight foot-and-mouth
February 27, 2001
BSE: Moves to repel European disease
January 29, 2001
Summit considers BSE crackdown
December 4, 2000

European Union
UK Food Standards Agency
The BSE Inquiry Report: Home
World Health Organisation (WHO)
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

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