Research into BSE carried out in the US which indicates that the disease could spread into the muscles of cattle should be "treated with caution", a Department of Agriculture expert said yesterday.
Ms Hazel Sheridan, superintending veterinary inspector on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy at the Department, said the research had not been "peer reviewed" and was currently being examined by the EU's standing veterinary committee.
It was looking closely at the US study showing that proteins implicated in variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease(vCJD), the human form of "mad cow disease", can accumulate and propagate in the muscle tissue of mice.
Because the disease has not been found outside the central nervous system in cattle, these so- called Specified Risk Materials are removed at slaughter and destroyed in cattle processed in Europe.
"The Commission has looked at the study and the scientific committee is going to evaluate this," an EU Commission spokeswoman said.
However, she noted that "numerous studies have been carried out on bovines affected by BSE and these have never proved the existence of the prion in muscle tissue.
"Moreover, the structure and metabolism of mice cannot be compared with that of bovines or humans. The Commission does, however, take on board the study's advice that additional studies be carried out."
The US researchers, led by Prof Stanley Prusiner, a Nobel Prize winner, called for urgent follow-up studies on prion-infected livestock to determine whether prions also concentrate in the muscle tissue.
The US research has already sparked off concerns in France which yesterday began an experiment seeking the disease in the muscles of BSE-infected animals. Similar research was ordered in Germany.
If the disease was found in cattle muscle, beef production would be unviable because all the carcasses would have to be destroyed to protect human health.