§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has concerning experiments with bovine tissues from which the infectious agent has not been capable of experimental transfer to test animals: which tissues are used; which test animals were challenged and how many; what were the ages of these animals; and what was the length of the experiment.
§ Mr. SoamesTransmission studies of a variety of tissues from confirmed BSE cases are in progress. The information in respect of terminated experiments in which no signs of a scrapie-like disease have been observed are as follows:
Mice challenged by feeding at 4–6 weeks of age Tissue Number of mice Duration of experiment (days) C57B11 CRH1 RIII Udder and milk 19 571 (689) — Supramammary LN 10 667 — — Placenta (A) 18 673 (699) — Placenta (B) 24 — — 754 Spleen (A) 20 690 — — Spleen (B) 24 — — 841 Carcase and mesenteric LN 18 680 (683) — Brain and CSF 8 — (678) — 1 C57B1, CRH and RIII are different strains of laboratory mice LN = Lymph node.
Mice challenged parenterally at 4–8 weeks of age Tissue Number of mice Duration of experiment (days) Muscle semitendinosus 24 870 Muscle diaphragma 24 888 Placenta 24 774 Buffy coat (of blood) 24 916 Semen 24 925 Bone marrow 24 793 Spleen 235 918 More than 50 other tissues are currently being tested by parenteral challenge of susceptible mice, but none of these experiments has yet reached its end point.