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投稿者 佐藤雅彦 日時 2001 年 1 月 30 日 08:33:17:
狂牛病はすでにアジアに到達した……
━━大英帝国の「狂牛病」は七つの海を“制覇”するか━━
●狂牛病の全盛期に英国から家畜飼料を輸入していたインドネ
シア、タイ、台湾、スリランカなどの国の家畜は、すでに狂牛病
に感染しているかもしれないという、おぞましい警告が報道され
ました。
●「狂牛病」はウシだけでなく、他の家畜やヒトに“種間伝播”する
恐れがあるので、ウシ以外の家畜が汚染されていることも充分に
考えられます。これらの国からの輸入食肉や、ゼラチンその他の
食用・化粧品用・医薬用材料は、潜在的に「伝染性スポンジ脳症」
の病原体に汚染されていた可能性があります。“高みの見物”を
していた日本も、すでに尻に火がついているのかも知れません。
●グローバル貿易にともなって必然的に生じる、水平的な“食物
連鎖”ってわけです。
■■■■@■■■.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=266842§ion=default
Mad Cow Crisis Has Asia Within Its Reach
LONDON, Jan 24, 2001 -- (Reuters) Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and Sri Lanka may become the next victims of mad cow disease after buying potentially tainted animal feed from Britain at the height of the UK epidemic, scientists said on Wednesday.
Britain, which banned the feeding of crushed animal carcasses to cattle in 1986, exported much of its stocks of feed to Europe and beyond until a decade later, when the trade was ended.
Scientists suspect the use of so-called meat and bone meal in feed has spread the deadly brain-wasting disorder, and so UK export data may hold a key to which countries are threatened by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.
"The countries that stick out because they were importing animal feed at the height of our epidemic in the 1990s are Indonesia, India, Thailand, Taiwan and Sri Lanka. They really stick out a long way," said scientist Iain McGill, who worked at Britain's farm ministry at the height of the BSE crisis.
"Europe was importing a lot, but after the link became clear within the European Union they cut down from 1990 onwards. The exception would seem to be Italy. They might have a slightly later problem brewing."
BSE's spread from Britain to Europe has devastated the beef industries of countries such as France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, all of which imported large amounts of animal feed after UK officials found Britain's first BSE case in 1986.
MESSY TRADE
Indonesia started importing general feedstuffs from Britain in 1991, with the largest consignment of over 20,060 tons in 1993, which compared with less than six tons into badly hit Germany that year, UK customs data showed.
Thailand, Taiwan and Sri Lanka imported lesser tonnage, but the quantities picked up in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Scientists said the spread of the disease depended on how much meat and bone meal was included in animal feed, and how much was fed to cattle -- but the figures did show the potential reach of mad cow disease.
"It really depends on what has happened to this meat and bone meal, but it's a very, very messy business and a very, very messy trade indeed," McGill said, noting that other EU countries hit by mad cow disease had exported meal and bone meal.
Ralph Blanchfield of the independent UK Institute of Food Science and Technology said no country was safe.
"I don't think any country can say they are 100 percent sure that they are free of BSE," he sai d.
For some countries it could be a matter of time before they unearthed cases of the disease.
"You would expect the first cases (in Asian countries) within three or four years but it really depends on how much they are recycling on their own," McGill said, referring to the practice of using domestic cattle carcasses in feed.
"If they are recycling either within a species or between species...then you might expect a peak round about now or in the next few years -- and that depends on looking for it."
In Europe, increased testing of higher-risk cattle over 30 months old, part of a package of recent measures agreed by the European Union, have unearthed more cases of BSE than expected.
LOWER-RISK COUNTRIES
For the United States, the risk from European feed is low but the country's beef industry may not be safe, McGill said.
"The United States imported just under 20,000 kg (of UK feed) in 1989 when the epidemic started to get going but was not at its peak, so there would be a pretty low risk," he said.
But circumstantial evidence suggested that a similar disease in U.S. mink might have been caused on farms where they had been fed cattle remains.
"They were recycling...so if they had an undetected case of the disease...they could be more exposed from their own BSE rather than from Europe."
For McGill, like other scientists, the trade in animal feed should be another nail in the coffin for factory farming.
"The industrialized system whereby this potentially toxic material has been exported everywhere does pose a risk...I think we need to look at how industrialized farming got one bad apple in the cart and the entire world is put at risk."
(C)2001 Copyright Reuters Limited.
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