London - British Ministry of Agriculture officials opposed telling ministers and the public that BSE-contaminated offal may have been processed into the human food chain, even after government health chiefs discovered that safeguards in slaughterhouses were being flouted.
Sir Kenneth Calman, who retired as chief medical officer last month, told the BSE inquiry yesterday that MAFF officials had refused to see its failure to police its own rules as a potential public health crisis, rather than a development which could undermine confidence in British beef.
His evidence will add weight to criticism of MAFF for its handling of the BSE affair. At least 29 people are believed to have died from the human form of the disease after eating meat contaminated before controls were introduced in 1989.