§ Mr. JackTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the degree of consensus within SEAC on(a) each of the recommendations made and (b) other advice given to his Department on bone-in beef; and if he will list the areas of disagreement within SEAC. [20771]
Dr. John Cunningham[holding answer 16 December 1997]: I have made a statement to the House and published SEAC's advice to me. One member, Dr. Watson, was unable to attend the meeting due to a previous engagement but the advice I have received represented the consensus view of all the members of the Committee who attended the meeting.
§ Mr. JackTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the risk of an individual developing new variant CJD from eating beef on the bone sold recently. [20767]
Dr. John Cunningham[holding answer 16 December 1997]: The risk for an individual eating beef sold in 1997 cannot be calculated with certainty. However, the median value of exposure per person in 1997 has been estimated with 95 per cent. confidence to be about 1 billionth of an ID50 unit. (Where an ID50 unit represents the amount of infectivity, that would cause disease in half the population exposed to that dose.)