A mass screening campaign to determine whether BSE ('mad cow disease') has spread to some of Britain's 40 million sheep should be carried out with "great urgency", says Britain's Food Standards Agency.
The agency said that the presence of scrapie, a similar disease, in up to 10,000 sheep a year could be "masking" the presence of BSE.
BSE infected cattle have been linked to the deaths of 81 people from new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).
BSE has been passed to sheep under laboratory conditions, but has never been found to have occurred naturally, although very few tests have been carried out.
The agency said sheep would have to be withdrawn totally from the market if BSE was found in them.
The report also called for a total ban on feeding practices that turned farm animals into cannibals.
The agency's report urged tougher tests to determine the safety of sheep intestines used in sausage casings and to find out whether the BSE agent could be transmitted in milk. It also called for the use of more efficient tests to find traces of BSE in mechanically recovered meat.
The Telegraph November 1, 2000
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