THE British government's specialist BSE committee will meet today at a secret location to decide whether it is still safe for children to eat British beef. Its recommendations will be made public in a statement to the House of Commons early next week.
The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory committee is expected to inform the Chief Medical officer, the Chief Veterinary officer and British ministers of its decision tomorrow.
However, government sources indicated that the advice will not be made public until the cabinet has met to discuss its implications. It is understood that the Health Secretary, Mr Stephen Dorrell, who requested the committee to study the vulnerability of children to the human form of BSE, will then inform MPs and the public in a Commons statement on Monday.
New scientific evidence appears to prove that there is a link between BSE and humans, with young people and children being more vulnerable to this new strain.
As local authorities queued up to announce their decision to ban beef on school dinner menus, Mr Doug McAvoy, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, called for a ban in all schools. Over a third of schools have now implemented a ban.
"The advice from the government is ambiguous. The best thing to do in the interests of children is to take the most cautious step until more information is available," he said.
The British Agriculture minister, Ms Angela Browning, vehemently denied suggestions that the government would not order the selective slaughter of BSE infected herds because it did not want to pay farmers any compensation.
"We have never been given advice to go forward with a slaughter policy. It has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with the scientific advice which we have implemented to the letter," she said.
However, the British Labour Party called for the immediate introduction of selective slaughtering to prevent a further crisis of confidence in the industry and insisted that the policy was supported by farmers.
"Ministers still do not seem to be aware of the seriousness of the crisis of confidence in British beef and beef products. It is time to introduce a selective slaughter policy to tackle BSE in this country. We should almost certainly concentrate on those dairy herds which have had the highest number of cows infected with BSE," argued Mr Gavin Strang, the shadow agriculture minister.
Cattle sales plummeted again yesterday at markets across Britain. Auctioneers in Ruthin, North Wales, described the prices as "disasterous," down by £140 sterling a cow and with only 34 cattle being offered for sale instead of the average 200 a day.