(JP)Sheep's brains, spinal tissue to be removed at meat plants

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http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20020112p2a00m0dm013001c.html

 

Sheep's brains, spinal tissue to be removed at meat

plants

 

Brain and spinal tissue from sheep will be removed at

meat processing facilities from April to wipe out the

possibility of mad cow disease spreading to humans via

sheep, the government decided Saturday.

 

" The possibility of sheep picking up mad-cow disease

through infected feed, and then humans contracting the

disease by consuming sheep, cannot be ruled out, " a

Health Ministry official said. " We decided to take no

chances. "

 

British scientists warned earlier in the month that

theoretically, eating sheep poses three times more

risk of spreading the disease, officially called

bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), to humans than

eating beef, because there were strict controls on

beef already in place.

 

Under the ministry plan, material known to be the main

carrier of the disease, such as brain, spinal tissue,

tonsils and spleens will be removed from sheep older

than 12 months at processing facilities from the start

 

of fiscal 2002. The removed organs will be incinerated

before being disposed of. A similar measure has

already been taken in European Union countries.

 

Removing brain and spinal tissue from sheep may not be

enough to ensure safety, as the anatomy of sheep is

different from cows and BSE infection is distributed

more widely throughout the body. However, the risk of

BSE spreading through sheep in Japan is believed to be

considerably low as consumption of mutton or lamb is

limited compared to beef. Only 4,800 sheep were

processed in 1999 compared to 1.3 million cows being

slaughtered every year.

 

It has been proved in laboratory conditions that sheep

can be infected with the disease when they are

injected with BSE infected brain material from cows.

 

However, scientists around the world have been unable

to determine if any sheep have been infected through

infected feed like cows. Researches are doubly

complicated by the existence of scrapie, a fatal

disease especially among sheep in which symptoms

closely resemble that of BSE. Scrapie has been around

ever since humans began to keep sheep -- there were 59

confirmed cases in Japan last year -- but none have

been shown to affect people.

(Mainichi Shimbun, Jan. 12, 2002)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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