Volume 1: Findings and Conclusions
5. The animal health story
Two fundamental issues

479 The story that we have set out raises two fundamental issues:

• should the feeding of all animal protein to animals have been banned from the outset? If not,
• should the requirement that SBO be processed in dedicated rendering facilities have been imposed from the outset?

480 The practice of feeding animal protein to animals was considered, in the context of BSE, by the Southwood Working Party, by SEAC and by the Lamming Committee. None considered that the practice should be stopped, or even that the practice of feeding ruminant protein to pigs and poultry should be stopped. The total ban on feeding animal protein to animals that was imposed pursuant to SEAC's recommendation in March 1996 was a reaction, and a reasonable reaction, to the horror of discovering that BSE was probably transmissible to humans. Its consequence was to turn renderers into a waste disposal industry rather than producers of a valuable animal by-product. We do not consider that it is cause for criticism that MAFF officials, MAFF Ministers and MAFF's expert advisers did not consider that this step was justified prior to 1996.

481 Had the possibility that a very small amount of infective material in feed would suffice to transmit BSE been appreciated, we feel that this should have led to the conclusion that it was unsatisfactory to use the same plant to render sequentially SBO and offal for incorporation in animal feed. We have already criticised the failure to give consideration to the possibility that a small quantity would infect at the time of the introduction of the ruminant feed ban.

482 Given that failure, we would not criticise MAFF officials for not insisting that SBO should be rendered in dedicated facilities. The considerable cost that this would have imposed on renderers could reasonably have been considered disproportionate if its only purpose was to enhance the protection of pigs and poultry against what was no more than a possible risk. Once perceptions had changed in 1994, Mr Meldrum is to be commended for having insisted that renderers should be required to provide dedicated facilities if they were to be permitted to process SBO.