It came as Mr Hogg, on another front, announced measures to reassure the public that lamb is safe to eat, following an EU warning over research showing that BSE could theoretically be transmitted to sheep. In a statement to the Commons, Mr Hogg said scientists on the Governments Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee had advised that the brains of sheep over six months old should no longer be eaten. The announcement came as John Major said he would continue to eat lamb chops. This isn't British sheep, the EU announcement covers sheep right across the European Union and is purely a precautionary announcement. The European Commission is set to order its own safety measures after EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler published research findings and asked EU scientific and veterinary experts to study proposals to remove the brains and nervous tissue of sheep from the human food chain.
Most butchers already remove the spinal cord, brain and spleen in sheep.
Dairy industry officials say they've seen almost no change in dairy cow rations since the British 'mad cow' scare of late March and early April. Renderers report that any initial losses in ruminant protein sales due to the publicity have since been recaptured. Sales were cut in half during the first week of the hullabaloo, says Mike Langenhorst, executive vice-president for Anamax, in Green Bay. The losses were particularly great in the company's dairy business. But Langenhorst says Anamax regained half those losses the following week, and local sales of dairy feed are actually a bit higher than before the crisis.