The British government urged the public not to stop eating sheep meat yesterday after it was disclosed a study into whether BSE was present in the national sheep flock was fundamentally flawed.
As Prof Peter Smith of the government's advisory committee on BSE declared it was "a dreadful mistake" that a four-year study into the disease had actually been testing cow brains instead of sheep brains, the Animal Health Minister, Mr Elliot Morley, said there was no reason to avoid sheep meat.
"We are guided by the Food Standards Agency and the Food Standards Agency is absolutely clear on this that they are not advising people not to eat sheep meat. Therefore there is no reason why it should not be used," he said.
There is no evidence that BSE has spread to sheep, but Mr Morley acknowledged there was a "theoretical risk" sheep could contract the disease and he stressed more work must be done to establish the level of risk.
The mix-up, discovered during a cross-check of brain material being used in a £217,000 study by the Institute for Animal Health in Edinburgh, has prompted consumers' representatives to raise questions about the safety of using lamb in baby food.
A consumer representative to the government's advisory committee on BSE said the Food Standards Agency should adopt a cautionary approach on issuing advice about sheep meat.
The Institute for Animal Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have already launched investigations into the blunder and a contingency plan is in place to slaughter sheep if BSE is confirmed.
But the Shadow Environment Secretary, Mr Peter Ainsworth, described the whole affair as "a shambles" and demanded the Environment Secretary, Mrs Margaret Beckett, apologise for the "underhand way" in which the test results were released, late at night. Mr Ainsworth said: "We are all left wondering whom we can trust. We certainly cannot trust ministers."