January 8, 2004 BBC Monitoring International Reports

Berlin: More than 350 head of beef cattle were put on the market across Germany last year without going through the required test for BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), or mad cow disease. This was revealed by comparing data with the national origin information system of animals (abbreviated HIT in German) in Munich. It showed inconsistencies with regard to some 11,000 BSE tests out of a total of nearly 3m. Until yesterday evening, the ministries in charge in the individual federal states were to have reviewed all unclear cases, following an instruction by the Federal Consumer Protection Ministry.

In Germany, all beef cattle older than 24 months have to be tested for BSE. In Bavaria alone, some 4,000 unclear data records had emerged. It turned out in half of all the cases, though, that the required tests were carried out with negative results, yet were reported to the HIT data bank with a delay or containing faults. For 55 animals it is certain that the required test was not carried out at all. Baden-Wuerttemberg had reported 180 cases before Christmas already. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, six cows from a smaller slaughterhouse were put on the market without the BSE test. "This is an isolated case," Agriculture Minister Till Backhaus (Social Democratic Party (SPD)), said in Schwerin on Wednesday (7 January). In Mecklenburg-West Pomerania alone, more than 300,000 head of beef cattle and 56,000 dead cows have been tested for BSE since 2001, without a single positive result. In Saarland, at least 25 head of cattle were not tested according to the rules last year, while the figure in Rhineland-Palatinate was at least 51. North Rhine-Westphalian Agriculture Minister Baerbel Hoehn (Greens) reported some 50 cases in the region of Oberbergischer Kreis on Wednesday evening. The search is also on in Lower Saxony for beef that appeared in shops without BSE tests. Schleswig-Holstein has reviewed again half of the 200,000 beef cattle records of 2003. "All of them are negative," said Randy Lehmann of the Consumer Protection Ministry in Kiel. "We assume that the district vets carried out the BSE tests as required."

The HIT data bank collects the vital statistics of all cattle in Germany, from birth through change of ownership and transports to slaughter. Last year, the results of BSE testing had to be reported to the data bank for the first time. There are now a few sticking points when comparing this data, Lehmann said. Mistakes could occur already when entering the 15-digit code number on the cows' ear-tags. This is why many test records could not be attributed to animals.

Since the first outbreak of mad cow disease in Germany in November 2000, nearly 10m BSE tests have been carried out, 293 of them with positive results. The fact that more than 350 head of beef cattle were not tested does not mean that BSE-infected meat would have put on the market, Waltraud Fesser of the consumer advice centre in Rhineland-Palatinate reassures consumers. The likelihood is very small.