Volume 6: Human Health, 1989-96
4. Human health developments:January - December 1990
Introduction

4.1 With the human Specified Bovine Offal (SBO) ban in place, the Government had completed the two major measures that were designed, as a matter of precaution, to provide protection against a risk to human health that most believed to be very unlikely to exist. In this chapter we examine issues affecting human health in 1990. We do so by reference to four main topics. The first two of these relate to two reactions to the SBO ban. Our third main topic describes how the UK responded to issues raised by the EC. ¹ Our final main topic comprises the increasing public concern about risks to human health from BSE, and the response to that concern.

4.2 The first reaction to the SBO ban was one that had not been anticipated by MAFF. Because brain was now an SBO, the SBO Regulations contained a provision that a head that contained the brain could under cover of a movement permit be transported, unstained, to a head boning plant for the recovery of head meat. Otherwise the brain had to be removed at the slaughterhouse, and disposed of as an SBO, before the head could leave the slaughterhouse. This had disadvantages. Some butchers who sent cattle to be slaughtered required the head to be returned to them so that they could remove the tongue and head meat. This was no longer permitted by the Regulations, so long as the brain remained within the head.

4.3 More generally, renderers, whose clients were demanding that meat and bone meal (MBM) should not contain SBO, no longer welcomed heads containing brain. As a result, a practice rapidly developed at many slaughterhouses of splitting the skull and removing the brain. The head could then be disposed of free from the taint of being an SBO. In this chapter we consider the problems of contamination to which this new practice gave rise, and what was done about it.

4.4 The other reaction to the SBO ban was a more general concern about the risk that slaughterhouse practices would result in the contamination with SBO of those parts of the animal that were destined for the human food chain. In particular, there was a concern about the possible contamination of mechanically recovered meat (MRM). In this chapter we shall see how these concerns were addressed. The practice of rendering and details of slaughterhouse practices are discussed in vol. 13: Industry Processes and Controls.

4.5 In both instances, advice was sought from the new Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), whose role in the BSE story is considered in detail in vol. 11: Scientists after Southwood. SEAC's assistance was also sought in relation to public concerns about the safety of beef that were aroused when it became known that a cat had succumbed to a spongiform encephalopathy. The significance of this cat (and others that also succumbed) is an important aspect of the increasing public concern discussed in the fourth main topic that we propose to cover in this chapter. This is preceded by our third main topic, the UK's response to EC consideration of nervous and lymphatic tissue.

4.6 Before we examine these main topics, we give an overview of events in 1990 and provide brief accounts on a number of relevant issues in order to set the scene. First, we look at initiatives related to food safety that Mr John Gummer introduced shortly after he became Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in July 1989. Second, we briefly describe the integration of veterinary and policy advice within MAFF during 1990, leading to the creation of a combined Animal Health and Veterinary Group (AHVG). Third, we examine meat hygiene legislation, discussing evidence that suggests there were problems with poor hygiene standards in many slaughterhouses, and we look at how the Food Safety Act 1990 led to additional requirements in slaughterhouses. Fourth, we briefly describe some general aspects of the SBO ban in 1990. These are the additional requirements placed upon slaughterhouse operators by the SBO ban, the extent to which the SBO ban was monitored during 1990, practical concerns about the SBO ban and guidance that was given by MAFF.