§ Mr. GillTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the risk to human health of eating beef cooked on the bone; and what the estimated incidence is of health problems from this cause. [49631]
§ Ms JowellIn its advice to Ministers on 3 December 1997, the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) said that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) infectivity had been found in the dorsal root ganglia and bone marrow of cattle and there was a small risk of BSE-infected material entering the human food chain. On the basis of the risk assessment concerning the various factors involved in the transmission of BSE to humans available to it, the Committee concluded that there was a 95 per cent. chance of no cases of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and a 5 per cent. chance of one case arising from this exposure in 1998.
Taking account of this advice, and that of the Chief Medical Officer that he would be very concerned if any 84W tissues that had been shown to transmit BSE were knowingly allowed to remain in the human food chain, we introduced the Beef Bones Regulations.