Volume 13: Industry Processes and Controls
3. Head-boning and brain removal
Introduction

3.1 Brain tissue was the most infective part of an animal with clinical BSE. When heads of suspect animals were sent to the Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL) for post-mortem diagnosis, it was recognised at an early date that precautionary handling arrangements were required to minimise the risk of staff coming into contact with brain material. When the bovine brain was designated as specified offal, the slaughtering industry had to consider how to deal with heads and brain material from slaughtered cattle. This chapter looks at the practices that were in place for recovering meat and brains from skulls around 1986, and how these practices changed following the emergence of BSE.

3.2 Before the introduction of the SBO controls, heads of slaughtered cattle had a commercial value. Meat was harvested from them by slaughterhouses, specialist head boners or butchers. The remainder of the head was then sold to renderers. However, by the end of March 1996, just outside the period with which the Inquiry is concerned, the entire bovine head, other than the tongue, was specified bovine material and had to be disposed of accordingly. Instead of profiting from it, slaughterhouses now had to pay renderers for its removal and disposal.