Past crises related to outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, the spread of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and the occurrence of dioxins in feedingstuffs have shown the consequences of the improper use of certain animal by-products for public and animal health, the safety of the food and feed chain and consumer confidence.

– (FR) Mr President, at first sight, this report on health requirements for animal by-products appears to be very technical. It forces us to face a genuine problem for society and to take into account two realities that are not easy to reconcile. Firstly, the legitimate concern of consumers with regard to the BSE epidemic and the terrifying human form of BSE, namely Kreutzfeld-Jacob’s disease.

It is precisely the great public interest in this subject, and the apparent avoidability of the most recent instances of human health being put in danger, that justifies the introduction of strict sanctions as asked for by the report, in order to finally stop new cases of BSE flaring up.

Over the years, the European Union has adopted a number of legislative measures to detect the presence of BSE and to guard against and prevent its spread to humans and animals.

57. Points to the need to launch further projects designed to open up a more direct avenue to research into nvCJD (human BSE), bearing in mind that the projects submitted to date relate solely to subjects connected with the animal kingdom and the recent findings of British researchers confirm that BSE and nvCJD are closely linked;

(4) Whereas the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) adopted an opinion on BSE risk on 27 March 1998; whereas in that opinion the SSC recognised three major issues in considering the risk of BSE: first, the risk of human exposure arising from the direct consumption of potentially infective material, secondly, the risk to man from ingesting or being exposed to processed, potentially infective material, and, thirdly, the risk of propagating the infection by recycling the infective material through animal feed; whereas the Code Commission of the International Office of Epizootics (OIE) also proposes that the assessment of the risk to human ...[+++] and animal health in countries, or regions within countries, be based on a combination of the spread of BSE and the application of measures to control the risk;