HC Deb 19 December 1995 vol 268 cc1123-8W
Mr. Redmond

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what research his Department has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated to determine whether (i) bovine spongiform encephalopathy and (ii) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease can be caused by organo-phosphate pesticides; and if he will make a statement. [6070]

Mrs. Browning

Scientists from this Department, the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council have met the proponent of the theory that BSE is caused by exposure of cattle to organo-phosphate pesticides to discuss his ideas in detail. They concluded that the ideas were unsubstantiated, as they failed to explain a number of key facts about the disease. In addition, the MRC has carried out an independent test, designed in full collaboration with the proponent of this theory, to test the hypothesis, that OPs bind to the BSE prion protein. The independent MRC scientists found no evidence of binding and have said that the theory does not merit further investigation.

The hypothesis has also been considered by the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, which noted that any possible association between the use of agricultural pesticides, including OP insecticides, and the occurrence of BSE had been considered in the original epidemiological investigation, and none had been found; that the lesions of delayed neurotoxicity induced by OPs are clearly distinguishable from those in BSE; that many countries without BSE use OPs on cattle; and that Guernsey, where OPs are not significantly used, does have BSE. It also noted that the OP hypothesis does not explain the temporal occurrence of BSE.

Mr. Bayley

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much money his Department has spent in each of the last 10 years; and how much it estimates it will spend in the current year and each of the next three years on research into the risk of transmission of the BSE agent from cattle to(a) humans and (b) other primates. [6183]

Mrs. Browning

This Department has a very wide-ranging research programme on BSE, many elements of which address the question of the risk of transmission of the BSE agent. It is not possible, without disproportionate cost, to separate out the elements as requested.

Since BSE was first identified in November 1986, this Department has spent, or intends to spend, the following sums on research into the disease:

Financial Year £ million
1988–89 0.5
1989–90 1.0
1990–91 1.5
1991–92 5.0
1992–93 5.9

Financial Year £million
1993–94 5.7
1994–95 5.4
1995–96 5.4
1996–97 6.4

No estimates are available of expenditure beyond the next financial year.

Mr. David Nicholson

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the reasons for not extending the Specified Bovine Offal Order to all calves and young cattle. [6128]

Mrs. Browning

I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on 14 December 1995,Official Report, column, 830.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food what research has(a) been commissioned and (b) evaluated into the number of BSE-infected cattle being eaten in British abattoirs. [6975]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: None, since cattle are not eaten in abattoirs.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the number of asymptomatic bovine spongiform encephalopathy infected cattle(a) that have been consumed and (b) that will have been consumed by 2001; what estimate he has made of the number of bovine spongiform encephalopathy infected dairy cattle slaughtered at the end of their milking life that will have been consumed in these periods; and if he will make a statement. [6957]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave to him on 31 October 1995, Official Report, column 223. All the controls in place to protect the public from any remote theoretical risk from BSE are based on the assumption that any cattle going for slaughter may be infected with BSE.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food what action is being taken to ensure that animal tissue being eaten in the United Kingdom does not contain bovine spongiform encephalopathy infection. [6955]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: All cattle suspected as suffering from BSE are killed and the carcase incinerated. In addition, the specified bovine offals, which include the tissues known potentially to contain BSE infectivity, have to he removed from all cattle at slaughter, and cannot he used for human food or animal feed.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the murine test in respect of its sensitivity towards infectivity of the various tissues of an infected cow. [6972]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The effectiveness of the murine assay for the presence of BSE infectivity is clearly demonstrated by the success of this assay in detecting infectivity by both intracerebral and by oral ingestion routes of exposure. The intracerebral route is the more sensitive. Using the appropriate strains, the murine test is the most sensitive currently available consistent with obtaining answers in experiments with reasonable speed. We are also currently carrying out a comparative bioassay experiment to assess the differences in sensitivity of cattle to cattle to mice transmission of BSE. The results will be published in the normal way when the experiment is completed.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what arrangement his Department has made of the dangers posed by central nervous tissue in the production of manufactured meat. [7020]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) on 28 November, Official Report, columns 530-31.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what considerations underlay his Department's response to the conclusions of the 1984 report of the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens on the handling of bovine spongiform encephalopathy infected liver. [6959]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: No infectivity has ever been demonstrated in bovine liver.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the sensitivity of the mouse inoculation test to assess the level of infectivity of bovine spongiform encephalopathy infected(a) brain and spinal cord, (b) other specified bovine offal, (c) bovine tissue other than SBO and (d) bovine milk; and if he will make a statement. [6964]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The sensitivity of the mouse bioassay test is independent of the tissues assayed. Using this test, BSE infectivity has been detected in the brain, spinal cord and retina of clinically affected cattle and in the distal ileum of calves experimentally challenged with BSE, but no other tissue.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the number of bovine spongiform encephalopathy infected cattle which have been eaten in the United Kingdom each year from 1965 to 1985. [6953]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The first case of BSE is believed to have occurred in April 1985. There is no evidence that it occurred in previous years.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what evidence his Department evaluated in respect of bovine liver in their determination in 1988 of which offals should he banned from human consumption. [6970]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The choice of offals for inclusion in the specified bovine offal ban when it was introduced in 1989 was based on an assessment of the risk that tissues would contain significant levels of the BSE infective agent if BSE behaved in the same way as scrapie. Subsequent experimental evidence has shown that BSE infectivity is detectable in a narrower range of tissues than scrapie infectivity. No BSE infectivity has ever been demonstrated in the liver of affected cattle, but, in one exceptional case, the liver of a clinically affected sheep has shown a trace level of scrapie infectivity. In eight others in the same study no infectivity was detected.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps have been taken to ensure that all bovine spongiform encephalopathy infected cattle with symptoms are picked out and marked; and to what extent cattle sold in markets have been so checked at abattoirs. [6949]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: BSE is a notifiable disease and farmers and other people in control of cattle must report to MAFF any animal they suspect of having BSE. The animal is then examined by a Ministry veterinary officer and if the suspicions of BSE are confirmed it is killed and incinerated. Cattle at markets are subject to some checks by market inspectors, and any displaying potential symptoms of BSE are reported to the Ministry. We do not rely on these checks as the final level of protection, as all cattle going for slaughter, including those which have not been sold through markets, are subject to an ante mortem check and all adult cattle and any displaying unusual signs are subject to veterinary examination prior to slaughter at abattoirs. Again, any BSE suspects identified will be killed and incinerated.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the number of spinal columns used in the production of manufactured meat since the beginning of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy epidemic; and how many of these he estimates derive from infected bovine, including young cattle. [6966]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: It is not possible to make meaningful estimates.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what considerations underlay the conclusions of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee that unimportant amounts of infectivity would be found in(a) the liver, (b) the lung, (c) the kidney and (d) the peripheral nerves of the cows; [7018]

(2) if he will make a statement on the research findings available to the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee on (a) the infectivity of animal tissue and (b) the species barrier between bovines and humans when it determined which tissue were considered acceptable for human consumption. [6967]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee is an independent advisory committee. In a recent open letter to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, the chairman of the SEAC, Professor John Pattison, and the deputy chairman, Dr. Robert Will. said:

SEAC regularly receives a great range and amount of information. Much of it is in the public domain but SEAC also has a data monitoring function with respect to long term research. Thus we are able to regularly look at the interim results of experiments that will take some years to complete so that we may have the earliest warning of any information which may be important for human and animal health.
Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what considerations underlay his conclusions that(a) the majority of confirmed cases of BSE born since 1988 are due to cattle feed contamination by ruminant protein set out in his answer of 31 January 1995, Official Report, column 646, and (b) that this has arisen from failings in the handling of a specified bovine offal after removal from the carcase which could have resulted in the offal entering the food chain. [7019]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to him on 31 October 1995, Official Report, columns 220–21.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what percentage of the cattle(a) in the current bovine spongiform encephalopathy study and (b) of the group in the study that died of bovine spongiform encephalopathy were fed feed concentrates before becoming part of the study; and what proportion of the cattle in the study were separated from their farm, indicating the specific ages in weeks. [6952]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The Ministry is undertaking a number of different studies into BSE using groups of cattle and it is not clear to which in particular the hon. Member refers.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what reports he has received from veterinary surgeons on failures fully to recover bovine offals prior to carcases being dispatched to produce mechanically recovered meat. [6969]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes) on 22 November, Official Report, columns 192–93. Since that question was answered, and up to 14 December, we have found a further four cases in which small pieces of spinal cord were left attached to carcases after dressing.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what experiments his Department has funded into the transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy from cow to offspring. [6961]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: This Department has funded a number of pieces of research into the possibility of maternal and horizontal transmission of BSE, some of which are still in progress. The four main studies are the on-going epidemiological study of the epidemic; the bioassay of reproduction tissues from clinically affected cattle; the case control study, all the details of which were published in the progress report on BSE presented to Parliament in May of this year, copies of which are in the Library of the House; and, finally, the cohort study: this is a blind study which will end in 1997. Details of this are given in the latest edition of the progress report on BSE, which was laid in the Library of the House on 14 December. So far, there is no statistically significant evidence for maternal transmission of BSE.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on his Department's research into the links between bovine spongiform encephalopathy and scrapie.[6965]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: Details of research into the links between BSE and scrapie are given in the report by the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, entitled "Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies: A Summary of Present Knowledge and Research—September 1994", which was published in February 1995, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the degree of under-reporting of cases of clinical BSE. [7021]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: Our analysis does not show any under-reporting of clinical cases of BSE.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of(a) sheep, (b) goats, (c) pigs, (d) mink, (e) mice and (f) chickens that have developed a spongiform encephalopathy after being fed bovine spongiform encephalopathy as part of experimental work; and if he will make a statement. [6963]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: In experiments funded out by this Ministry, sheep, goats, mink and mice have succumbed to disease when fed orally with BSE-infected brain material. Pigs and chickens have not succumbed to oral challenge with BSE-infected brain material.

Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what tests the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee conducted on primates in respect of bovine spongiform encephalopathy transmission to humans. [6950]

Mrs. Browning

[holding answer 18 December 1995]: The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee gives advice to the Government; it does not carry out research itself.