§ Lord Willoughby de Brokeasked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to subject to peer review the conclusions of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee relating to the advice to Ministers on bone-in beef; and [HL693]
When they expect to publish the data on which the conclusions and advice of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee to Ministers on bone-in beef were based. [HL694]
§ The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Donoughue)The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee decided their advice to Ministers in the light of further findings of a continuing experiment to examine the spread of infectivity and the occurrence of pathological changes in cattle exposed orally to infection with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and of an independently conducted risk assessment. The experimental results were subject to peer review and preliminary observations were published in theVeterinary Record on 31 January 1998 (G.A.H. Wells et al, p103–106). Final observations await completion of the experiment. The risk assessment was commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on behalf of the committee and was published by the technical consultancy company which did the work, Det Norske Veritas Limited. A copy of their report is available on the Internet at http://www.dnv.com.