§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the research that is being carried out by his Department into infectious diseases passing into the human food chain by the use of sheep brains and offals being fed to pigs, sheep and poultry being reared for domestic consumption.
§ Mr. MacleanA number of areas of current research are relevant to this topic, including
Monitoring of any spongiform encephalopathy in animals by brain histology.Pathology of experimental mouse scrapie.Inactivation studies in comparison with scrapie.Strain typing in comparison with BSE.Inactivation studies in relation to meat and bone meal.Technical developments in diagnosis by using scrapie associated fibrils and genotyping of farm sheep.Breeding programmes for resistance to scrapie.Transmission studies using marmosets, sheep and goats.