The increase in recent months in the number of reported cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is disquieting, even if not outright alarming. The reason for the increase in outbreaks among Irish herds is not immediately clear, although there is some suggestion that some small increase may occur at this time of the year because of calving. But this can hardly account for the possibility that the closing months of 1998 will produce the highest number of cases reported annually since the disastrous epidemic broke out in the 1980s.
Neither the Republic of Ireland nor Northern Ireland has ever had anything like the incidence of BSE that has beset the beef industry in Britain, and the number of cases reported on this island remains very small indeed compared to the neighbouring island. But the general expectation was that, once the cause of the disease in cattle had been elucidated and, as far as possible, eliminated, the disease would decline and disappear. Yet the incidence has increased in this State over the past three years and appears to be increasing again in the final three months of this year.
Data from the International Office on Epizootic Disease indicate that the number of cases of BSE in Britain declined (from a peak of nearly 37,000 in 1993) to 8,016 in 1996, to 4,311 in 1997 and may fall to fewer than 2,000 this year. The equivalent figures for Northern Ireland over the past three years have been 75, 23 and a projected 14 for this year. Meanwhile, the figures for the Republic rose from 16 in 1995 to 73 in 1996, to 80 last year and could, on current trends, be more than 80 by the close of this year. The numbers are still small here, but why does the trend seem to be running counter to the trends in Britain and Northern Ireland?
Our Agriculture Correspondent reported in Saturday's editions that there was no scientific explanation for the current rise in the number of cases being reported. Maybe the calving season can account for some of the increase through exacerbating the disease in cows already infected by the prion proteins which cause and carry BSE. The cross-contamination discovered in Britain in 1996 of cattle feed prepared in mills that were also used to produce such products as poultry feeds might account for some cases, and that should no longer be a cause for concern since the mills were designated so that separate installations were producing cattle feed from those that produce pig and poultry feeds.
But there is a worrying perception among some groups in this State that the number of cases of BSE may increase in times of agricultural economic recession, that maybe some hard-pressed farmers go back to feeding their stock with the meat and bone meal in which the BSE prion proteins are transmitted. It is possible that this perception might be reinforced by the fact that nearly half of the cases in the most recent report occurred in herds in Monaghan and Cavan because there might be some smuggling of the illicit meat and bone meal across the Border. It must be said that there is no recorded factual or scientific basis for such a perception. It may be no more than an unfounded suspicion. But constant and unremitting vigilance is required if the good record of Irish beef is not merely to be maintained, but further enhanced on world markets. Such suspicions need to be allayed and all doubts about the safety of Irish meat must be shown to have no foundation.