BRITAIN has exported at least 1,650 cases of BSE to continental Europe since 1985, a prominent British vet has claimed.
Mr Kevin Taylor, Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer in Britain, has told journalists that claims by mainland European countries that there are only 18 cases of BSE there are incorrect.
"Based on our own exports of breeding animals to Europe and knowing what we know now about what happened to the herd in Britain, 1,650 cases must have developed in those animals."
Mr Taylor, who was giving a briefing to European journalists at the Tolworth research station in Surbiton, Surrey, said it was possible that cases of BSE had been misdiagnosed by continental vets.
Mr Taylor, regarded as the world's leading veterinary authority on the disease, says controls introduced in Britain to curb the disease are working and the disease is being brought under control.
He said there had been a decline in the number of reported cases, from 1,000 per week in 1993 to 175 cases two weeks ago. However, there had been 27,000 SS since the ban on feeding bone meal to animals was introduced in July, 1988.
"All the evidence is that there was continuous infection of animal feed. There was no ban on feeding specified offal to pigs and poultry and so it is possible that there was illegal use of it by farmers to feed cattle.
Mr Taylor was highly critical of the Republic's policy of slaughtering all animals in a herd where a case of BSE is detected.
"If you slaughter all the animals involved where a case of BSE is identified, you will be killing 35 healthy animals to find the infected one." He predicted Irish rates of infection would not fall by using the slaughter method. Instead, he said he wanted infected animals identified and traced to their source along with other animals from the original herds.