Microwave could be key to BSE crisis

Beef dilemma: Scientists and politicians seek solutions

Cattle could be put into an industrial microwave to rid them of the prions which cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), according to scientists researching a new method of tackling the beef crisis.

If their studies are successful, the 15,000 cattle over 30 months old slaughtered every week could be kept in the food chain, bolstering the entire beef industry.

The idea is based on the use of specialist microwaves in the disposal of toxic waste from the pharmaceutical and defence industries. Scientists hope the microwaves would destroy the BSE agent and the carcasses could then be sent for processing.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is to study a detailed proposal from Harper Adams Agricultural College, which is seeking government funding for the project as a long-term strategy to avoid the destruction of cattle.

The Government has banned all cattle over the age of 30 months from entering the food chain: 15,000 dairy cows at the end of their productive life and around 6,000 prime beef cattle over the 30 months limit are to be destroyed every week.

However, the research at Harper Adams, in Newport, Shropshire, is not likely to be completed for at least 18 months and would require a live test for BSE in cattle.

Richard Bruce, director of Harper Adams Enterprises, explained that the process is not to be confused with domestic microwaving of food - the carcasses would not be cooked.

"If we are able to treat the BSE, an animal - identified as being infected by using a live test - would be killed and then made safe ... These microwaves work in the same way as laser treatment. The prions would be zapped out of the carcass. The process does not rely on heat."

Dr Bruce said the technique would be attractive to the beef industry and to consumers. "It is a clean process ... The animal would be slaughtered first and then microwaved. There is no incineration, no animals leave the food chain."

However, he stressed that the project, in conjunction with a Critical Resource, a waste-disposal firm, is still in its early stages and requires government funding. "There is already interest from MAFF but no commitment as yet." he added.

t Meat industry representatives have suggested to MPs on the Commons Health and Agriculture select committees that the removal of the brain, spinal cord and guts from beef carcasses might make no difference to the risk of BSE being passed to humans.

Richard Cracknell, vice-president of the Federation of Fresh Meat Wholesalers, said the chances were "billions to one" that any of the 10 Britons who developed a new strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) might have consumed parts of the tissues, now referred to as "specified bovine offals". He said that none of the SBOs had ever in his experience been used in the human food chain.

But John Baker, chairman of Britain's largest abattoir, said the only possibility was that the 10 might have eaten products from abattoirs which had not taken out the spinal cord during processing before the 1989 ban on SBOs on carcasses. He also admitted that meat had always been mechanically recovered from the spinal column, until the practice was banned last November.