BSE: meat industry accused of witholding facts

The UK food industry has been accused of withholding information crucial to calculating the vCJD risk to UK consumers dating from the 1980s, the BBC reports. A government committee has been charged with finding out how much meat potentially contaminated with BSE could have entered human food supplies. The group fears that a percentage of the meat may well have ended up on the dinner plates of school children, the BBC continues. But because of the lack of information from the companies, it cannot yet determine if this is true. The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (Seac) has spent five years asking food companies how much "mechanically recovered meat" (MRM) was used in the past, as they think this type carries the most risk. However, Seac says it has been "continually thwarted" in its efforts to extract information from the industry. In a statement, the British Meat Manufacturers' Association responded: "We are working with the Food Standards Agency in order to provide them with information on British manufacturing standards and practices. "​ Up to now100 people are believed to have died as a result of eating BSE infected meat. According to the BBC the latest estimates say the death toll could be as high at 100,000.