Chirac under fire after slamming 'terrible' British food
UK - President Jacques Chirac has heightened Anglo-French tensions on the eve of the 2012 Olympics host city decision with jibes about British food. Mr Chirac reportedly made undiplomatic jokes about mad cow disease and "terrible" food to Russian President...

Shetland fears over scrapie plan
UK - Concerns have been voiced that Shetland could lose many of its hardiest sheep due to the introduction of compulsory testing for the disease scrapie. More than 30,000 sheep and lambs were killed last year under the government's National Scrapie...

Shetland fears over scrapie plan
UK - Concerns have been voiced that Shetland could lose many of its hardiest sheep due to the introduction of compulsory testing for the disease scrapie. More than 30,000 sheep and lambs were killed last year under the government's National Scrapie...

NBA urges Defra to go 'full throttle' on bone-in beef
UK - The National Beef Association has urged Defra to go full throttle for the earliest possible re-introduction of unrestricted bone-in beef exports - which if all goes well could be secured by this time next year. It says large volume export deliveries...

Probe into infected beef
UK - Mistakes led to beef which could have been infected with BSE going into the food chain, the Food Standards Agency claims. Abattoir workers are supposed to remove parts of cattle carcasses which pose the greatest risk of BSE. But it has emerged...

Food Chiefs 'Acted Properly' over BSE Breach
UK - Food safety chiefs acted “entirely properly” in not telling the public that beef possibly contaminated with BSE had entered the food chain, the Government insisted today. Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael said a recall had not been required...

BSE beef 'entered UK food chain'
UK - Beef which could have been contaminated with BSE or mad cow disease has entered the UK food chain. The Food Standards Agency told the BBC it did not alert the public because the meat had probably already been eaten. In August 2004, 11 carcasses...

Cattle cull will ease BSE risks
UK - Defra is to slaughter around 4,500 cattle which could be at risk from BSE. In preparation for any change to the Over Thirty Month rule and the lifting of the EU ban on beef exports, Defra has started the necessary cull of cohort cattle born after...

BSE testing routine announced
UK - The government has launched a public consultation on the proposed legislation which will set out the legal requirements of a robust testing regime to replace the Over Thirty Months Rule. DEFRA has also initiated trials in six abattoirs across Great...

Mad Cow's Stubborn Mystery
UK - Nearly a decade ago, clusters of young people in Britain started suffering mysterious symptoms. First they became depressed and withdrawn, prone to crying fits, anxiety attacks, and bouts of physical pain. Within months they lost the capacity to...

Illegal slaughter pair face jail
UK - A father and son who ran a squalid illegal slaughterhouse without regard for human or animal welfare have been warned they may face prison sentences. They also admitted three offences of contravening the post-BSE regulations by failing to dispose...

Experts Increase BSE Checks on Goats
UK - Experts today said there was no cause for public alarm over a report that a goat may have died from BSE. The Scottish animal died in 1990, when the BSE epidemic in cattle was at its height. At the time the cause of death was given as scrapie, a...

Scots goat might have suffered mad cow disease
UK - A goat that died in Scotland 15 years ago may have had mad cow disease, scientists said yesterday, although further examination was needed. Scientists from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs carried out tests on a stored...

Possible bse in a 1990 UK goat sample
UK - Scientists at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency have informed Defra that a goat, confirmed as having scrapie in 1990, may have had BSE. More sensitive testing methods have found the sample had traits similar to samples from goats experimentally...

'Mad cow' tests on Scottish goat
UK - Scientists are carrying out tests on a Scottish goat suspected of having had mad cow disease. The animal died in 1990 at the height of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak among UK cattle. If confirmed, it would be the second goat...

End of beef ban faces delay
UK - Lack of central control and co-ordination could delay the frequently-promised end of the over 30-months cattle slaughter scheme for another 12 months. Source: The Scotsman

UK scientists: Major human BSE unlikely
UK - A major epidemic of the human form of mad cow disease is unlikely, said researchers from London. Researchers at Imperial College London said on Wednesday they believed only about 70 future cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) would...

New form of scrapie found in Britain
UK - A new form of the sheep disease scrapie has been detected in Britain. The unknown strain was spotted last year and there have since been more than 80 confirmed cases, including a total of 12 (five from Wales) in sheep with the highest scrapie resistance...

Farmers welcome end of BSE ban
UK - Cumbrian beef farmers have welcomed the phasing out of a ban on meat from cattle aged more than 30 months entering the food chain. Ministers have backed proposals to replace the ban, which was imposed during the BSE crisis as part of disease control...

Families' fury as the BSE safeguards are lifted
UK - The crisis over 'mad cow' disease was officially declared over yesterday - to the dismay of grieving families. Ministers are to lift a ban on the eating of meat from older animals, which was previously seen as a key safeguard. But relatives of...