document: CSO -LSB- Article by Greg Neale , environment correspondent : `` Creeping Cow Madness '' -RSB- -LSB- Text -RSB- It is already a multi-million pound disaster for British agriculture and now it threatens to erupt into a major political row between European governments . It is bovine spongiform encephalopathy -LRB- BSE -RRB- -- `` mad cow '' disease -- and few would be prepared to say exactly when and where it will end . Next week European Community health ministers will meet to discuss a German call for a ban on British beef imports to that country . Some German politicians say their country should risk breaking Single Market free trade rules because the potential health risks are so grave . Nonsense , say British government scientists . Meanwhile , the controversy in Britain is reaching new heights . Last week , the scientific journal Nature called for a start to be made on replacing the British cattle population with animals free from the infection -- which the magazine estimate would cost # 30 billion . Next day , one of the farming industry 's loudest voices , the magazine Farmers Weekly hit back at what it called `` a diet of speculation , half-truths and downright lies '' and denounced what it called `` certain publicity-hungry scientists promoted by the media more interested in fiction than fact . '' Calling on the Ministry of Agriculture , Fisheries and Food -LRB- MAFF -RRB- to do more to explain the disease , the magazine concluded : `` The alternative is to exacerbate the current climate of fear and uncertainty ... '' The fear is not just that shared by farmers worried about their livelihood . Could it transfer itself from cows to humans ? `` Mad Cow '' disease was probably first observed on a farm in Kent in 1985 , when four animals were put down after they were observed drooling , staggering before collapsing . Scientists at the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Surrey found that the animals ' brains had become holed and spongelike -- similar symptoms to the disease scrapie in sheep and the rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -LRB- CJD -RRB- , in humans . MAFF scientists concluded that BSE had appeared in cattle given processed feed that included remains of diseased sheep . New rendering methods , reducing the temperature at which the feed was prepared , were enabling the infective agent to survive , they concluded . Acting on this advice , in July 1988 , John MacGregor , then Agriculture Minister , introduced a ban on such ruminant protein being used in feed . Cattle confirmed as having BSE have been put down and incinerated , with the ashes being buried . In 1989 a further ban was introduced , on cattle offal sold for human consumption . That year it was officially predicted that 20,000 animals would be affected before the feed ban , together with the drying up of any supplies already on farms , had its effect . But the spread of BSE has confounded original expectations . The Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday that by the beginning of last week the total number of cattle diagnosed since November 1986 as having BSE had risen to 121,898 -- six times the original prediction . The ministry believes that the reason more cattle have died is that farmers or food renderers kept using infected feed after the ban . Last week , MAFF said that the numbers of confirmed BSE cases in the first two months of this year showed a 20 per cent drop over the same period in 1993 -- proof , the ministry says , that the epidemic is waning . Yet there is still controversy . Some 8,004 cattle have died from BSE despite being born after the feed ban was introduced . MAFF says 5,767 of these were born before the end of 1988 , and were probably fed from remaining infected supplies . That theory has been assailed by critics of the ministry . Mark Purdey , a Somerset farmer and independent researcher , believes that the use of organophosphate pesticides , used from the 1980s as a sheep dip and to treat warble-fly infestation in cattle , could have damaged the animals ' immune system , exposing them to the disease . Ministry scientists , originally dismissive , are now reassessing his theories . More recently , researchers have suggested that in some cattle , BSE has been `` vertically '' transmitted from cow to calf . Given a long incubation period , such a possibility could make the disease harder to eradicate . This month 19 cattle have died on farms where MAFF is conducting a seven-year experiment into the disease . It is a daunting possibility for the farming industry , which has responded angrily . `` There is no evidence that this disturbing disease can be transferred from cow to calf , '' Farmers Weekly insisted last week . More cautiously , MAFF told The Sunday Telegraph : `` We have never said we have ruled out the possibility of maternal transmission , but even if it occurs , our scientists do not believe it will do anything other than lengthen the time before the disease is eradicated . '' So how long will it be before the epidemic is ended ? Richard North , a former environmental health officer turned consultant , and a contributor to The Sunday Telegraph , believes that MAFF 's statistics are being skewed to produce more optimistic figures -- claims not surprisingly rejected by the ministry . Mr North said : `` We have more than 8,000 cattle born after the feed ban that have subsequently contracted BSE . The claim that all of these are affected by illegally retained infected feed gets less credible by the hour . '' One question -- perhaps the most important -- remains . If the disease has jumped from sheep to cattle -- and cases have also been reported in kudu antelope at London Zoo -- could it affect humans ? That prospect , discounted by most scientists -- including MAFF critics such as Mr Purdey -- is considered a possibility by Richard Lacey , a Leeds University microbiologist who has been studying cases of CJD , a disease with a long incubation period . Reviled by the farming industry and privately disparaged by MAFF , he nevertheless insists that there may be a threat . `` I 'd expect an increase in cases of CJD by the early years of the next century , '' he says . `` The bottom line is we just do n't know what risks we may be running . ''
extractive_keyphrases: maternal transmission diseased sheep disease scrapie british agriculture british beef imports infected feed
abstractive_keyphrases: mad cow disease bse case