HL Deb 09 March 1998 vol 587 c4WA
The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the research conducted at the Central Veterinary Laboratory, Weybridge, the interim results of which led to the Beef Bones Regulations 1997, bears any relevance to current on-farm conditions, including the size of the dose of infective material administered to the cattle, the age of the cattle to which it was administered and the length of the incubation periods found. [HL794]

Lord Donoughue

The experimental results relate to animals which were exposed to doses which we believe to be greater than that to which most field cases were exposed, though this is not certain as we do not know the size of the dose in field cases. Although this may cast some doubt over the early findings of infectivity in the intestine, there is no reason to question the findings in relation to dorsal root ganglia and neither SEAC nor the EU's scientific advisors have taken this to be anything other than a genuine result which relates to field cases of BSE.