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More documents confirm importation of potentially BSE-contaminated
animal feed in 1980s
Authorities warned of BSE risk in 1990
by Franco Aloisio
Documents obtained by The Malta Business Weekly confirm without
doubt that Malta used to import animal feed which had a high-risk
of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy contamination (BSE) commonly
known as Mad Cow.
This information, coupled with the revelations made by the UK
Sunday Times this week, confirms that the fatal animal meal
was being fed to local herds.
According to the UK Report of the BSE Inquiry, published last
year, Malta had been importing ruminant-based meat and bone
meal from the UK in the 1980s. These feeds were potentially
BSE-contaminated.
Volume 3, chapter 6 of the BSE Inquiry report (entitled “Notification
of the ruminant deed ban to other countries”) states that
the then British Chief Veterinary Officer in the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), Keith C. Meldrum, had
written to the veterinary officers of several countries, including
Malta, way back in 14 February 1990.
These countries were informed that they had been importing potentially
BSE-infected meal.
This letter was highly influential in forcing the local authorities
to ban the import of such products starting that same year.
The fact that the importation of potentially BSE-infected meal
was banned in 1990 was confirmed by government vet Dr Lino Vella
on Monday in a local newspaper.
Another document – a paper published in Spring 2000 by
the Optimal Wellness Centre – said that during the 1980s
thousands of tons of meat and bone meal (MBM) were exported
to cattle farms in BSE-free countries such as Malta.
Organic researcher Mark Purdley, author of the paper “Animal
Pharm” said: “Not surprisingly, only a handful of
folk had insight into the unsavoury world of MBM rendering business.
But for anyone who had scratched the mere surface of the global
distribution of British MBM products, it became strikingly obvious
that the very mainstay of the official hypothesis was radically
flawed.
“For instance, during the 1980s thousands of tons of this
very same incriminated MBM was exported to cattle farms in BSE-free
countries such as the Middle East, Malta and South Africa,”
he said.
Dr Meldrum had written: “....I am writing to you on a personal
basis to ensure that you are aware of all the developments in
relation to BSE, including its likely cause.”
In his letter, sent also to the Maltese Veterinary Officer,
the former Chief Veterinary Officer of the UK Dr Meldrum said
he was writing mainly because of the trading links between the
UK and Malta in either live animals or their products.
He wrote that BSE is a novel neurological disorder of cattle,
first identified in Great Britain in November 1986. It is one
of a group of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which
includes scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (cJD)
in humans.
In his 1990 letter to Malta, Dr Meldrum said that epidemiological
investigations have concluded that cattle were most probably
exposed to the agent of scrapie via commercial cattle feedstuffs
which contained meat and bone meal derived from sheep.
“A number of factors have been identified which, in combination,
precipitated the emergence of the disease in 1986 following
an increase in the exposure of animals to the causal agent in
1981 or 1982. In the light of this, the use in ruminant feedstuffs
of protein material derived from ruminant animals has been prohibited
in the UK since July 1988,” he said.
Malta stopped imports to feed meat and bone meal for cattle
in 1990. However in an another letter sent in 1990, Dr Meldrum
said several nations have not fully appreciated the possible
hazards from British meat and bone meal, “since only a
few nations have either banned our imports or the more general
feeding of ruminant material”.
The latest issue of the Sunday Times of London quoted Whitehall
documents revealing that as many as 70 countries, including
Malta, received more than 200,000 tons of protein potentially
contaminated with BSE between 1988 and 1996.
This protein for animal feed was exported by Britain’s
main producer of potentially contaminated MBM – Prosper
de Mulder, Britain’s largest rendering company, which processes
by-products such as offal and carcases unfit for human consumption.
The company is reported to have a turnover of £120m a
year.
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