Mad cow crisis 'has RI within its reach'

Mad cow crisis 'has RI within its reach'

LONDON (Reuters): Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and Sri Lanka
may become the next victims of mad cow disease after buying
potentially tainted animal feed from Britain at the height of the
UK epidemic, scientists said on Wednesday.

Britain, which banned the feeding of crushed animal carcasses
to cattle in 1986, exported much of its stocks of feed to Europe
and beyond until a decade later, when the trade was ended.

Scientists suspect the use of so-called meat and bone meal in
feed has spread the deadly brain-wasting disorder, and so UK
export data may hold a key to which countries are threatened by
bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

"The countries that stick out because they were importing
animal feed at the height of our epidemic in the 1990s are
Indonesia, India, Thailand, Taiwan and Sri Lanka. They really
stick out a long way," said scientist Iain McGill, who worked at
Britain's farm ministry at the height of the BSE crisis.

BSE's spread from Britain to Europe has devastated the beef
industries of countries such as France, Spain, Italy and the
Netherlands, all of which imported large amounts of animal feed
after UK officials found Britain's first BSE case in 1986.

Indonesia started importing general feedstuffs from Britain in
1991, with the largest consignment of over 20,060 tons in 1993,
which compared with less than six tons into badly hit Germany
that year, UK customs data showed.

Scientists said the spread of the disease depended on how much
meat and bone meal was included in animal feed, and how much was
fed to cattle -- but the figures did show the potential reach of
mad cow disease.

"It really depends on what has happened to this meat and bone
meal, but it's a very, very messy business and a very, very messy
trade indeed," McGill said, noting that other EU countries hit by
mad cow disease had exported meal and bone meal.

Ralph Blanchfield of the independent UK Institute of Food
Science and Technology said no country was safe.

"I don't think any country can say they are 100 percent sure
that they are free of BSE," he said.

"You would expect the first cases (in Asian countries) within
three or four years but it really depends on how much they are
recycling on their own," McGill said, referring to the practice
of using domestic cattle carcasses in feed.

"If they are recycling either within a species or between
species...then you might expect a peak round about now or in the
next few years -- and that depends on looking for it."