The British ban on sales of beef on the bone, because of fears that BSE may be transmitted in bone marrow, is a further disturbing indication that the nature of this disease is not yet fully known. Meanwhile, consumer confidence in beef has taken another knock.
The beef industry is unlikely to recover fully from this latest blow. It comes at the end of a period when science has done the beef industry few favours, just as consumption was showing signs of recovery.
In September a British expert group advised people to eat less red meat because of a possible link with cancer. Last month the possibility of new variant CJD, the human form of BSE, being transmitted in blood and blood products moved closer to definitive proof.
With each setback, the risk of more people giving up beef grows. T-bone steaks, roast ribs of beef and oxtail are the cuts of meat most likely to be affected by the ban.
But Irish veterinary experts and the new chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Dr Patrick Wall, made a clear distinction between the risk in Ireland and the risk in Britain.
He said the epidemiology of the disease was different in Ireland. The complete herd was slaughtered once an infected animal is identified, and no meat gets into the food chain. In Britain, only the infected animal is slaughtered. "We will, nevertheless, review all the available evidence. The risk of a BSE-infected animal getting into the Irish food chain should be zero if current control measures are enforced."
The risk is associated with "dorsal root ganglions", peanut-sized nerve packets encased within the spinal column. When meat is deboned, the ganglions are removed along with the bones. However, British experts fear that, when meat is sold on the bone, there is a chance they may remain.
Research indicates infection beyond the brain and spinal cord: butchers claim it is still unlikely that anyone would eat the ganglions because they are contained within the bone.
Prof Dan Collins of the UCD Department of Large Animal Clinical Studies, who is closely involved with BSE diagnosis in Ireland, believes that by imposing the ban on beef with bone, Britain is trying to achieve "absolute safety" when scientific evidence suggested it may not be necessary. It also smacked of a trade embargo, he said.
Irish people eating steak expect to get it from a prime animal of about 26 months, he said. BSE cases were invariably in animals of more than 36 months. "Under no circumstances can it be applied to prime Irish cattle coming off grass that have never had contact with meat and bonemeal."
But the microbiologist Prof Richard Lacey, an outspoken critic of the previous British government's handling of BSE, said the measure was too little too late. "The proposals to exclude cattle bones are welcome, but it doesn't go far enough."
