HL Deb 27 July 1983 vol 443 c1621WA
Lord Melchett

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether all pigs with access to pasture on TB infected farms are tuberculin tested and slaughtered if reactors.

Lord Belstead

No. Although all pigs slaughtered for human consumption are subjected to full meat inspection examinations, the causal agent for bovine tuberculosis has been isolated from pigs in this country in a Ministry laboratory on only four occasions in the last 10 years. There is therefore no evidence of a significant involvement of pigs in the epidemiology of the disease in this country.