--------------------
[email protected] --------------------
'France did not do enough to prevent spread of mad cow,' say scientists in stinging attack on own government
By Ian Sparks Last updated at 3:04 PM on 06th November 2008
Comments (0) Add to My Stories French scientists have issued a damning report finally admitting the true scale of France's mad cow disease epidemic.
The full confession that BSE was rife in France in the early 1990s comes a decade after their illegal ban on British beef drove many UK farmers into bankruptcy.
The study ordered by a senior Paris judge and published today by the country's top scientists found the French did not do enough to prevent the spread of BSE when it was first discovered in 1986.
French scientists have launched a stinging attack on their own government over the handling of mad cow disease in the 1990s
It also said that the lives of nine French people who died between 1996 and 2006 from its human form Creuzfelt-Jaokb disease could have been saved it better precautions had been taken.
BSE was officially first detected in Britain in 1986 and steps were taken to combat it.
Former French President Jaques Chirac said the only thing Britain gave to European farming was mad cow
But it only became obligatory for farmers to declare cases in 1990 and the EU lifted a trade embargo on British beef in 1999.
But France continued with an illegal ban on British meat for another seven years, while claiming their own herds were free of the disease.
It has still never paid tens of millions of pounds in fines to the EU for persisting with its unlawful embargo.
Former President Jacques Chirac said in 2003 that the only thing Britain had given European farming was mad cow disease.
But the new report into how nine French people died of vCJD has now uncovered the true extent of the disease across the Channel.
Scientist Jean-Louis Thillier said: 'There was enough available scientific information for the government to have taken measures to protect the public from BSE in 1991.
'But in fact it was not until ten years later that adequate steps were taken.'
Mr Thillier asked why there was an embargo placed on British beef when nothing was done in France.
He said the French government had forgotten its role in guaranteeing the safety of food and that nine people had died as a result.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1083643/France-did-prevent-spread-mad-cow-say-scientists-stinging-attack-government.html
BSE FRANCE
https://lists.aegee.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=BSE-L&X=4031BF620A9567E0D2&
[email protected]&q=france&s=bse+france&f=&a=&b=
TSS
--------------------
[email protected] --------------------