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Headline: UK probe chairman attacks BSE advice to abattoirs

Wire Service: RTw (Reuters World Report)

Date: Mon, Nov 30, 1998

Copyright 1998 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.

The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole

or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.

By Gerrard Raven

LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The chairman of the official British

inquiry into mad cow disease said on Monday ministers in the former

Conservative government failed to stress the importance of rules designed

to keep infected beef out of the human food chain.

Judge Sir clashed on the issue with Dorrell,

Conservative Health Secretary from 1995 to 1997.

Dorrell told the long-running inquiry that ministers had assumed

abattoirs were obeying instructions introduced in 1989 to remove specified

material, including the spinal cord, from cattle carcases before selling

them to butchers.

But in November 1995, the State Veterinary Service reported that it

had found 17 occasions when spinal cord had been found attached to carcases

after dressing.

This was just five months before British scientists announced they had

found evidence that it was possible for people to develop the brain-wasting

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease by eating beef from animals suffering from Bovine

Spongiform Encephalopathy.

The announcement led to a worldwide ban on British beef exports by the

European Union which the bloc's farm ministers only agreed earlier this

month to lift. Some 30 Britons have so far died of the new variant of CJD.

told Dorrell that when the abattoir regulations were first

introduced, they were said to be " ultra-precautionary. "

" As time went by, those who knew about the subject attached increasing

importance to these regulations as evidence raised question marks over the

thesis that this is not transmissible, " said.

" We have not found anywhere a stage at which this message was passed

to the trade -- 'Looking at it now, the following pointers suggest that the

risk of transmissibility may be higher. In these circumstances, it is

absolutely crucial that the bits which may be infected are removed'. "

Another inquiry member, former senior civil servant June Bridgeman,

said other witnesses to it had said they regarded the abattoir regulations

as a mere precaution because ministers had been assuring people that beef

was safe to eat.

However, Dorrell said the Conservative government had regarded the

rule as important and would not have been able to say beef was safe if they

had known they were being flouted.

Dorrell was the first of a string of former Conservative cabinet

ministers, who will give evidence to the inquiry, set up by Britain's new

Labour government.