Cattle semen imports no danger, says MAF

Fears that mad cow disease can be transferred through an increasing range of tissue and organs - including imported British cattle semen and embryos - have been rejected by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The national manager for risk management, Dr Stuart MacDiarmid, said New Zealand would not ban semen and embryo imports from Britain and other European countries, because the disease still infects only the brain and spinal cord of cattle.

Claims are being made in the European press that mad cow disease (BSE or bovine spongiform encephalitis) can be passed on through the spleen, the tonsils, parts of the intestine and possibly other tissues and organs.

Dr MacDiarmid said scrapie, a disease that has been in the sheep population in Europe for hundreds of years - without affecting humans - could be passed on through these organs and that was where the confusion might have arisen.

New Zealand has neither BSE nor scrapie, but Dr MacDiarmid said the refuelling of the BSE scare in Europe could have knock-on effects for New Zealand trade.

"BSE can now, theoretically, be found in sheep, when previously it was thought it was just a cattle disease.

"This is what is causing deep anxiety in Europe and is potentially damaging for New Zealand trade.

"If BSE is found in sheep, then consumers are likely to turn off sheep meats - and that's all sheep meats, including New Zealand's trade. They stopped buying beef ... so there's a potential risk there."

Although New Zealand had never had BSE, Dr MacDiarmid said farmers here had "no reason to be smug about our BSE status," particularly in light of recent attitudes to livestock testing.

Farmers should be vigilant about their stock and report any animals that appeared to have nervous diseases and showed such symptoms as staggering.

Where these had been reported, they had turned out to be diseases or conditions such as listeriosis, grass staggers or vitamin B12 deficiency.

New Zealand was lagging behind other countries in the number of animal brains put through the Wallaceville Research Centre in Upper Hutt to check on BSE and other diseases.

"A country this size should put 300 animals a year through, but we get nothing like that. No, we don't have BSE, but other BSE-free countries are putting the expected number through. New Zealand farmers seem reluctant to put any suspicious stock through."

He said NZ was one of only six beef exporters that had been labelled essentially BSE-free in a European Union survey of 75 countries, but if it did not keep up safeguards, such as testing enough animals, it could be used as a trade issue.

There was also a further problem in that latest tests for BSE required using "known positives," which would require bringing BSE into the country.

But so far, public pressure had kept the infected material for use in laboratories out of the country.

- NZPA