London - Britain's Agriculture Ministry has played down reports that new cases of BSE might have been resulted from the ministry's failure to ban cow's blood from use in cattle feed.
The Sunday Times newspaper yesterday reported that eight possible new cases of BSE had been detected in cows born since the introduction of measures in 1996 which were designed to prevent any more cases.
The paper said scientists thought the new cases might be linked to the fact that cows' blood can be included in bovine feed despite a ban on using other types of cow material in feed. The Agriculture Ministry said only one of the possible new BSE cases had been confirmed and added that the feed industry did not use cow's blood in cattle feed.