§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for South Shields of 21 May,Official Report, column 84, (1) whether the cow aged 22 months came from a herd where cases of BSE had already been confirmed; whether this cow's mother had contracted BSE; and if he will make a statement;
(2) on what date BSE was confirmed in a cow aged 22 months; and if he will make a statement.
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§ Mr. GummerBSE was confirmed in the 22-month old cow on 28 November 1989. The disease had not been previously confirmed in the herd or its dam.
§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will list the published papers on scrapie produced by each member of(a) the Southwood and (b) Tyrrell agricultural committees;
(2) if he will list the published papers on bovine spongiform encephalopathy produced by each member of (a) the Southwood and (b) the Tyrrell committees.
§ Mr. GummerThe members of the Southwood working party who were chosen to provide advice on bovine spongiform encephalopathy because of their eminence and experience in a variety of scientific fields under its chairman, Sir Richard Southwood, linacre professor of zoology at Oxford university, were Sir John, now Lord Walton, formerly professor of neurology at the university of Newcastle upon Tyne and a recent president of the General Medical Council and the Royal Society of Medicine; Professor M. A. Epstein, emeritus professor of pathology, university of Bristol; and veterinary microbiologist Dr. W. B. Martin, formerly director of the Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh which undertook research into sheep diseases including scrapie.
The working party took evidence from various scientific experts, including Dr. R. H. Kimberlin, formerly director of the MRC/AFRC neuropathogenesis unit in Edinburgh. Dr. Kimberlin has conducted extensive research into scrapie and the other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies for nearly 30 years and has published more than 150 papers. He is a member of the new Tyrrell committee.
The Tyrrell committee's other members, under the chairmanship of Dr. D. A. Tyrrell of the Medical Research Council, who is a virologist with wide knowledge and experience of viruses affecting man, are, at present, Dr. R. G. Will, consultant neurologist at Western general hospital, Edinburgh, who has researched the epidemiology of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease; Dr. W. A. Watson, formerly director of the central veterinary laboratory and chairman of the Ministry's scrapie working party; and Professor F. Brown, an animal virologist who has served in an advisory capacity on a number of committees, including AFRC scrapie advisory committee.
It would be impractical to list in the Official Report all the papers published by these experts.
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§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will list all the establishments which are(a) investigating and (b) have confirmed spongiform encephalopathy in cats or dogs;
(2) how many (a) cats and (b) dogs have been (i) confirmed and (ii) suspected of having spongiform encephalopathies; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. GummerSince recent widespread publicity and MAFF recommendations to look out for spongiform encephalopathies, there is bound to have been an increased number of investigations. I understand that investigations are being, or have been, conducted on 22 cats at a number of Ministry veterinary investigation centres, a private laboratory, and the universities of Bristol and Liverpool. Disease has been confirmed in one cat in Great Britain and in one cat in Northern Ireland. There are no suspect cases in dogs. There is not yet any indication as to whether this condition has been long present in cats or not.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on what date the Southwood committee gave him specific advice that he should be particularly alert to the possible occurrence of encephalopathies in household pets.
§ Mr. MacleanThe report of the Southwood working party was received by the Government on 9 February 1989.
§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will make a statement on his policy towards the disposal of BSE carcases; and whether he intends to review this policy;
(2) if he has investigated the environmental, and animal and human health consequences of dumping BSE carcases on refuse sites.
§ Mr. GummerCarcases are disposed of either by incineration or burial, depending upon local circumstances and available facilities. Both are safe methods of carcase disposal and carried out in accordance with sound veterinary practice. Currently around two thirds are burnt and one third buried. However, the objective is to secure incineration facilities for all carcases.
§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the refuse sites which are being used to dump BSE carcases listing the county in which they are found.
§ Mr. GummerThis information is not held centrally.
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§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the total number of bovine spongiform encephalophathy cases that have been confirmed by county basis in the current year until the end of May.
§ Mr. GummerThe information for Great Britain is as follows:
County Number Avon 104 Bedfordshire 11 Berkshire 17 Borders 6 Buckinghamshire 40 Cambridgeshire 23 Central 6 Cheshire 141 Cleveland 9 Clwyd 48 Cornwall 366 Cumbria 93 Derbyshire 72 Devon 507 Dorset 416 Dumfries 39 Durham 20 Dyfed 206 Essex 26 Fife 18 Mid Glamorgan 10 South Glamorgan 1 West Glamorgan 2 Gloucestershire 140 Grampian 45 Gwent 34 Gwynedd 11 Hampshire 205 Hereford and Worcester 101 Hertfordshire 30 Highland 11 Humberside 28 Isle of Wight 30 Kent 108 Lancashire 111 Leicestershire 129 Lincolnshire 40 London 3 Lothian 5 Manchester 5 Norfolk 79 Northamptonshire 33 Northumberland 15 Nottinghamshire 34 Orkney 3 Oxfordshire 95 Powys 52 Shropshire 118 Somerset 401 Staffordshire 103 Strathclyde 58 Suffolk 57 Surrey 57 East Sussex 65 West Sussex 118 Tayside 13 West Midlands 5 Warwickshire 69 Wiltshire 299 North Yorkshire 210 South Yorkshire 20 West Yorkshire 25 5,146