BSE Scare And Famine

Sir, - The EU negotiates to kill and burn every cow over 30 months

Sir, - The EU negotiates to kill and burn every cow over 30 months. Why? Because there is a minuscule chance that a person will contract and die from an appalling disease. At the same time, famine ravages parts of the world. In particular, 4 million people are starving in the Horn of Africa. Certainly tens of thousands will die and hundreds of thousands will suffer long term consequences.

Would it not be better to send the meat, with the tiny chance of causing death, to feed the millions who by eating it will have a much lower chance of dying? The fortunes to be spent storing, rendering and burning the meat should be used to transport the food.

This solution appears so obvious and so correct that surely my logic must be wrong - Yours, etc.,

John Teeling, Clontarf, Dublin 3.