The Irish Veterinary Association has taken issue with a report carried in a British newspaper which claimed Ireland was seriously under-estimating the incidence of BSE in its cattle hard. The association said the report has a flawed understanding of how UK cattle imports into Ireland were measured.
A Daily Telegraph article last week claimed that since Ireland imported 150,000 UK animals in the period 1985-1989, statistically it should have recorded 911 cases of BSE rather than the 118 actually reported. However, the veterinary association said yesterday that, apart from about 1,000 animals imported for breeding, the rest of the UK imports were from Northern Ireland, where the prevalence of BSE is much lower than in Britain.
The association said in a statement: "The publication of such erroneous material unjustly condemns the genuine efforts of Irish farmers, the veterinary profession and the regulatory authorities to address this crisis."