Volume 6: Human Health, 1989-96
3. Introduction of the ban on Specified Bovine Offal
Introduction

3.1 In vol. 4: The Southwood Working Party, 1988-89 we have carried out a detailed review of the Southwood Report. The Southwood Working Party considered the possible risk to human health posed by the entry into the food chain of potentially infective tissues from cattle infected with BSE but not yet showing symptoms. We refer to cattle incubating the disease in this way as subclinicals. The Working Party concluded that the risks from subclinicals were not such as to call for any precautionary measures for human food other than a recommendation that manufacturers of baby food should avoid using ruminant offal and thymus.

3.2 Our review concluded that this suggestion was not founded on a firm scientific base, but reflected a value judgement based on scanty evidence. While this was not a fact that the Working Party sought to conceal, it was not apparent from a reading of their Report, for they did not set out the reasoning underlying their conclusion.

3.3 We explain in Volume 4 our reasons for concluding that the advice given by the Working Party in respect of subclinicals did not reflect a proper application of the common sense principle that action should be taken to reduce the risks to human health so that they were as low as reasonably practicable (the ALARP principle). There were practical measures available to reduce the potential risk. It was appropriate to consider such measures under the ALARP principle.

3.4 Four months after the Southwood Report was submitted to Ministers, those Ministers decided to take such measures. They announced that the Government would ensure that certain Specified Bovine Offal (SBO) should be rejected at slaughterhouses for all cattle so that they could not be used for human consumption in any way ('the SBO ban').

3.5 In oral evidence to the Inquiry the then Deputy Chairman of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) described the SBO ban as an important measure to protect public health. ¹ Sir Richard Southwood told us that the policy of compulsory slaughter of clinically affected cattle may have been of equal or greater importance. He added that it may very well be that all those who have so tragically caught variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) were infected by eating contaminated beef prior to the compulsory slaughter policy. ² For our part, we do not doubt that the SBO ban was important. It was not a perfect solution. We shall see later in this chapter that difficult issues arose when considering the extent of the ban, and we discuss in subsequent chapters problems that arose in its implementation. If we are lucky enough to achieve the optimistic outcome canvassed by Sir Richard, that may be because the SBO ban had been introduced and gave humans additional protection beyond that offered by compulsory slaughter of clinically affected cattle. Unfortunately, delay in appreciating that an SBO ban was appropriate, and deficiencies in its implementation, may have diminished our chances of achieving such an outcome. In this chapter we shall:

• give an overview of events in 1989;
• give an account of events leading up to the publication of the Southwood Report on 27 February 1989, and of the announcement of its publication;
• discuss the extent of Government review of the Southwood Report;
• give an account of the consideration of issues concerning baby food and cull cows, the external pressures on Government to take action in relation to subclinicals, and further developments which led to the decision to ban SBO in all human food;
• discuss what was said about the reasons for the ban;
• give an account of the preparation of the regulations intended to give effect to the ban. Here we describe the division of responsibilities between MAFF and the Department of Health (DH), and within MAFF, the choice of legislation, and the course of events generally, before turning to particular types of offal where issues arose, the exemption for calves under 6 months, issues concerning mechanically recovered meat (MRM) and heads, consideration of enforcement of the ban, and the making of the regulations themselves (including the debate in Standing Committee); and
• discuss the preparation of the regulations, looking at general questions before turning to particular types of offal, the exception for calves under 6 months, the consideration given to MRM (in the course of which we shall summarise evidence given to the Inquiry about the operation of removing the spinal cord) and consideration that was given to enforcement.

3.6 Further consideration was given to the protection of human food during the period from January 1990 to 20 March 1996, and this is dealt with in Chapters 4-7 of this volume. Consideration of a ban on SBO in animal feed is dealt with in vol. 5: Animal Health, 1989-96. The ban on export of SBO is described in vol. 10: International Trade.