Britain Relaxes BSE Rules

WASHINGTON - Sep 19/05 - SNS -- Government officials in the United Kingdom plans to replace its rule that cattle over 30 months (OTM rule) of age cannot enter the human food chain with testing.

The decision is the culmination of several years of work on the part of the UK Government exploring whether the replacement of the OTM rule by BSE testing could be justified on the basis of the food-borne risk to consumers and proportionality in relation to the cost of maintaining the current rule, reports the U.S. agricultural attache for the country.

The new system will allow UK cattle born after 31 July 1996 to be slaughtered and, subject to receiving a negative test result for BSE, be sold for human consumption. Cattle born before 1 August 1996 will continue to be excluded from the food chain and there will be a new legal offence of sending cattle born before August 1996 to abattoirs producing meat for human consumption.

In making this announcement, the UK Government was accepting the advice previously received from the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) that the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs' (Defra) proposed BSE testing system for older cattle should replace the OTM rule.

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