§ Mr. YeoTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on research conducted by Dr. Christl Donnelly on the incidence of BSE in France. [144334]
§ Ms StuartWe welcome the research by Dr. Donnelly, of Imperial College, London, which was published inNature on 14 December. It is important that decisions on food safety are based on sound science.
Dr. Donnelly's research showed that, if the United Kingdom's ban on the sale for human consumption of beef from animals aged over 30 months at time of slaughter is enforced, and if the French Government's controls on cattle feed have eliminated the feed-borne transmission of BSE to French cattle born after mid-1996, there is virtually no risk from French beef consumed in the UK.
The research found that even if enforcement was only 75 per cent., the risk from French beef would be comparable to that from UK beef.