Lord Lucasasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the remarks of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) quoted by Lord Donoughue on 27 January (H.L. Deb., col. 150), whether the CMO would have modified his advice on the necessity of de-boning beef if the level of infectivity detected in the dorsal root ganglia had been (a) 10 times or (b) 100 times lower (all other things being equal); and, if so, what the modified advice would have been; and [HL368]
Further to the remarks of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) quoted by Lord Donoughue on 27 January (H.L. Deb., Col. 150), whether the CMO would have modified his advice on the necessity of de-boning beef if the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee's (SEAC) estimate of the most likely number of infected animals entering the food chain in 1998 had been (a) two; (b) one; or (c) none (all other things being equal); and, if so, what such modified advice would have been. [HL369]
§ Lord Donoughue:The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) bases his advice to Ministers on the available evidence, rather than theoretical speculation.
On this occasion, BSE infectivity had been found in the dorsal root ganglia and bone marrow, tissue not covered by regulations preventing it from entering the human food chain. The CMO has consistently taken the view that it would be wrong to knowingly allow material which might contain BSE infectivity to enter or remain in the human food chain.
Minsters accepted that the risk of contracting new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from exposure to this material, although very small, was real. Because the protection of public health is a priority for this Government, we decided that action was necessary to ensure that material that could convey infectivity was removed from the human food chain.