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France suspends animal-based feeds & bans T-Bone steaks

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November 15, 2000 

PARIS-- (AP) - France is suspending the use of animal-based feed for all livestock in France and banning T-bone steaks as part of a series of stepped-up measures to reduce the possible spread of mad cow disease, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced on Tuesday.

Jospin said the "temporary and general" ban on the use of animal-based feeds for all livestock - including fish, chicken and pork - would take effect on Wednesday.

A decision on a full ban would be made once the French agency for food safety, known as AFSSA, assesses possible risks associated with such feeds. That could take 3-4 months.

An initial opponent of a ban on animal-based feeds, the Socialist prime minister had been under growing pressure since President Jacques Chirac, a conservative, called last week for a total ban on such feeds.

France banned the use of animal-based feed for cows in 1990 and other ruminants six years later. Yesterday, only chicken, pork and farm-raised fish are allowed to be brought up on animal-based feeds.

It is the risk of cross-contamination of feeds for cows from feeds authorized for chickens, pork and farm that the French government is seeking to eliminate.

Fears of mad cow disease have surged recently in France as cows increasingly turn up with the disease around the country. Numerous school districts have taken beef off cafeteria menus.

Scientists have held out a possible link between mad cow disease and a similar brain-wasting human malady.

Jospin reiterated what he has said were the potential dangers posed by stocking and burning the feed in question, and explained that is why he would not issue more than a moratorium until AFSAA delivers an expert opinion on the issue.

However, he announced other measures to help protect consumers from any eventual contamination, including the banning of cow vertebrae and ordering a review of slaughterhouse practices to reduce any chance of banned animal parts creeping into meat.

The "temporary and general suspension ... appears technically possible and acceptable" from a public health standpoint, Jospin said.

The measure means that more than one million tons of feed must be stocked and incinerated, and the Environment and Agriculture ministries are charged with locating sites.

The measure also means that France must increase imports of soja to replace the protein-rich product being banned. Jospin said that, in the long-term, Paris would seek extra aide from Brussels to develop a protein replacement for the banned feed. Finally, the prime minister announced that funds to study the prion at the source of mad cow disease would be tripled in 2001 to 210 million francs (about dlrs 30 million).

According to a poll this weekend by the Ifop agency for Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, 70 percent of French consumers said they were worried about animal-based feeds, and nearly 80 percent wanted an immediate ban on them.

Only two people are known to have died in France from the human variant of the disease - compared to 81 in Britain - but public concern has rocketed since it was revealed last month that potentially infected meat had made it to supermarket shelves before being hastily withdrawn.

The number of cows found to be suffering from the deadly disease has jumped to more than 80 this year compared to 31 for the whole of last year, as more aggressive and systematic testing of French herds is carried out.