A BRITISH expert on infectious diseases has warned that products containing gelatine from British cattle are still a health threat, although gelatine has been declared safe by other experts since the BSE scare.
Speaking at a VHI seminar on infectious diseases in Dublin last night, Prof Richard Lacey said. "We must not use gelatine until we've got rid of BSE."
He said products eaten by children like sweets, jellies and yoghurt all contained gelatine.
Prof Lacey said he supported the European ban on British beef and beef products. Cattle farmers in Britain would have to "learn another trade", like the miners and shipbuilders whose industries had died out.
He said they should approach the British government for compensation as it had failed to stamp out the spread of BSE.
Prof Lacey, from the University of Leeds, was one of the first experts to suggest a link between BSE and its human form, CJD.
Last week the EU standing veterinary committee voted 87 to 39 to maintain the ban on all British beef products. The committee was expected to lift the ban on beef by products, including gelatine.
After a conference on BSE last month the World Health Organisation concluded that gelatine in the food chain "is considered to be safe. The manufacturing process has been demonstrated to significantly inactivate any residual infective activity that may have been present in source tissues.
An Irish food expert, Dr James Sheridan, head of meat technology at Teagasc, said last March that animal parts used in gelatine do not contain the proteins thought to cause BSE.
Prof Lacey claimed the WHO declaration was based on inaccurate research. The system of injecting mice with a version of the disease was not satisfactory, he said.
In Britain there have been 80 cases of BSE in cattle under 30 months, he said. With the incubation period of the disease this meant that proteins that cause the disease were present in bones and tissues used in gelatine.
"The latest cases of CJD date back to the late 1980s. So we're obviously at the tip of an enormous iceberg and we can't quantify the consequences.
Prof Lacey said he considered that Irish beef and beef products were safe.
