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DEAR
Page 58
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SIR
• Now I've seen it all. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is a very serious new disease of cattle. Fears that it might spread to other cattle, coupled with animal welfare considerations, require drastic action. Animals suspected of BSE infection are slaughtered and, to ensure they cannot get into the food chain, their carcasses are destroyed. Worries that BSE might be in an animal undetected have led to a decision not to allow "specified offals" — the brain, spinal cord, tonsils, thymus and spleen — to enter the human or animal food chain, even where the animal is BSE free. The Government has quite rightly taken these steps to safeguard human health for that must be a paramount consideration.
And what is the reaction from your own journal — applause that the Government has acted to protect human health? — relief that there can be no conceivable dangers to your readers? No — a loud protest that the ban on exports of cattle over six months has reduced hauliers' profits and a demand for compensation. The ban on exporting cattle over six months old is an EC decision, not a British Government one. The British farmer loses out on that, too, since a lucrative market has been closed — but we're not demanding compensation. Nor have we demanded compensation for the losses which arise because the specified offals can no longer be used for feeding stuffs what was once an asset in the sale of an animal has now become a liability because someone has to treat the offals and ensure their safe disposal.
Certainly the farmer whose suspected animal is slaughtered is given "100%" compensation (as is also the case with foot and mouth disease) but that is because the Government understandably wanted to reassure the public that no farmer could have an economic incentive to seek to sell a suspected BSE affected animal before the symptoms became too noticable.
For those farmers whose dairy cows are BSE affected there is no compensation for the loss of revenue from milk. Any farmer with BSE-affected animals will suffer losses as well as the acute anxiety which accompanies waiting to see if other cattle are affected — but, again, these matters are not subject to compensation.
Of course, it is a matter of great concern to see the knock-on effect of the livestock export ban, but let's get things in perspective. The priority must be to stamp out the disease.
John Malcolm, National Farmers Union, Agricultural House, Knightsbridge, London. TOUGHER STANDARDS RECEIVE PRAISE • The RT1TB is to be praised for pushing for tougher standards for HGV driving instructors. The big question is, why doesn't the Government back them up by making the national registration scheme compulsory? (CM 3-9 May).
It cannot be right that any person in possession of an HGV licence can instantly become an instructor, whether they have 20 years or 20 minutes within the industry. Ken Cartwright, Salford, Manchester.