HL Deb 19 June 1996 vol 573 cc33-4WA
Lord Hylton

asked Her Majesty's Government:

With regard to the selective culling of up to 80,000 cattle at particularly high risk of BSE, in which three year-classes they expect the risk of disease to be highest; and which cattle they consider to have been most exposed to contaminated feed.

Lord Lucas

The greatest incidence of clinical disease in 1996 will be in animals of five to seven years of age. The basis of the selective culling strategy is that it can be shown that if an animal born on a farm goes on to develop BSE, then other animals born on the same farm at the same time have a greater chance of developing the disease than other cattle because they are likely to have been exposed to the same feed as calves.