The European Commission's Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) has
closed its door to the business of dispensing scientific advice,
but not before finalising 19 outstanding opinions and two reports
related to bovine spongiform...
Policy decisions were top of the agenda for the first face to face
meeting in Sydney of the newly expanded Australia and New Zealand
Food Regulation ministerial council.
Two former executives of the now-defunct Snow Brand Foods Co.
pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of fraudulently
obtaining some 200 million yen (€1.7m) by falsely labelling meat to
receive subsidies under a government beef...
Just when the Japanese food industry appeared to be settling down
after a period dogged with food scares and consumer fears, the
industry was stung on Friday by another quality-control scandal
when the government accused a company...
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided on Tuesday to
submit a basic food safety bill in the next fiscal year in a bid to
erase widespread public distrust stemming from the government's
failure to keep mad cow disease...
Israel has confirmed on Tuesday its first case of mad cow disease,
found in a cow in a kibbutz in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights,
but officials said they were confident no infected meat had reached
the market.
British farmers accused France of hypocrisy this week over its ban
on British beef, after a European Union report criticised domestic
French measures to control mad cow disease.
New research virtually eliminates the likelihood of mad cow disease
being transmitted from one generation of cattle to the next, a
senior British government adviser on the disease has reported.
The latest "mad cow disease" scare in Germany got a boost over the
weekend after reports that the McDonald's fast food restaurant
chain in Germany had pulled beef from circulation, Reuters Health
reports.
Japan's Agriculture Ministry on Friday began checking all frozen
beef stored under a government buy-back programme for false labels,
following revelations Snow Brand Food Co Ltd had improperly
labelled its meat products, Reuters...
A day after Italy's first human case of suspected mad cow disease,
the European Parliament has demanded new EU powers to help prevent
the consumption of contaminated meat, reported Reuters.
Britain said on Wednesday it would extend a programme aimed at
eradicating scrapie from sheep amid fears that the illness could
mask mad cow disease in the national flock. Scientists are
investigating whether mad cow disease, or BSE,...
Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged his French counterpart, Lionel
Jospin, to allow British farmers to resume exports of beef to
France, officials at a two-day European Union summit said on
Saturday.
France will make sure that it protects consumers as it decides how
to respond to a ruling by the EU's top court that it is breaking EU
law by banning British beef, farm minister Jean Glavany said on
Friday.
Slovakia's fifth case of mad cow disease surfaced on Friday, three
months after the country became the second central European state
to discover the brain-wasting affliction, a state veterinarian
said.
Estonia said on Friday it imposed a five-year ban on imports of
live cattle and beef from neighbouring Finland after tests on a
slaughtered Finnish cow suspected of having mad cow disease proved
positive.
Japanese investigators searching on Sunday for the cause of an
outbreak of mad cow disease zeroed in on a milk substitute which
may have been fed to all the animals involved.
Government scientists at the centre of a botched study in which cow
brains were used in a test for BSE in sheep were most likely
confused by badly labelled sample bottles, an independent auditor
said on Friday.
A European Union ban on meat-based livestock feed, imposed over
fears of mad cow disease, could in future be relaxed for certain
types of animals, E.U. officials said on Monday.
T-bone steak came a step closer to reappearing on European menus on
Tuesday after senior European Union officials said the removal of
cattle vertebrae from food stocks provided little extra protection
against the human form of "mad...
Japan's first outbreak of mad cow disease is rippling through the
world's second biggest economy, depressing sales of beef, putting
farmers on alert and shaking the food industry.
To date there is no evidence that BSE is present in sheep and goats
under field conditions but BSE cannot be excluded, scientists from
the European Commission confirm this week.
Japan's Health Ministry said on Tuesday that it planned to inspect
all cattle due to be processed into food, tightening up its checks
for mad cow disease which currently only cover cows aged 30 months
or more.
Tests from a German laboratory confirmed Slovakia's first case of
mad cow disease on Thursday, proving fears that the brain wasting
affliction has spread further into Eastern Europe.
The Japanese government made a huge blunder in ignoring a European
Union report warning of a mad cow disease outbreak in Japan, the
Japanese Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries minister admitted.
On September 12, Japan's farm ministry began checking feed plants
and asked local authorities for a nationwide inspection in an
attempt to ease public concern over Asia's first suspected case of
"mad cow" disease.
Retail prices of livestock and poultry are expected to increase in
the Philippines as local producers predict a possible rise in the
prices of animal feeds due to the import ban on meat and bone meal
imposed by the Agriculture department.
The French government on Tuesday adopted measures to prevent the
spread of disease among sheep and goats and lowered the age
threshold for "mad cow" disease testing of cattle entering the food
chain.
U.K. research published on Thursday said that an entrenched sheep
disease, scrapie, could have triggered mad cow disease, whose human
form has killed more than 100 people, primarily in Britain.
Before the end of July, the French government should adopt
precautionary measures in an effort to protect consumers from
potential transmission of mad cow disease.
An international conference on mad cow disease on Thursday urged
all countries to take preemptive measures to combat the fatal,
brain-wasting illness,...
High levels of manganese in the environment, not infected beef,
could be respsonsible for the human version of mad cow disease
(vCJD), a Cambridge researcher...
US fast food giant McDonald's warned on Thursday that fears over
the safety of European beef, which dragged first quarter profit
down 16 per cent, would...
Nutritional supplements do not pose the threat of "mad cow" disease
to U.S consumers, the leading trade group for the industry assured
the public on Friday.
Central and east European agriculture ministers agreed at a meeting
on Thursday to harmonise efforts to keep their countries free of
mad cow disease....
At a meeting last week of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
to discuss threats to the US blood supply, the FDA announced that
it will be considering...
A biotechnology company is to lobby the U.K.government to
accelerate its testing programme for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, "mad cow disease", the...
The French government announced last week that it would ban cow
intestines from food because of fears it might transmit 'mad cow
disease,' to humans,...
