Food Authority sets up International Expert Group to probe BSE (Mad Cow Disease)

The Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) today announced that it has established a committee of international and domestic experts to assist its risk assessment of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) in the food supply.

ANZFA's Managing Director, Ian Lindenmayer, said eminent scientists, food technologists and food regulation experts from several prestigious organisations overseas have accepted ANZFA's invitation to participate in its work ( including members from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada ( as well as Australian and New Zealand experts.

Mr Lindenmayer said ANZFA is undertaking a formal comprehensive assessment of the risk to human health resulting from exposure to BSE through the consumption of beef and beef products.

'This expert group will provide advice on the status of the scientific evidence available worldwide on the health risks posed by BSE in food,' Mr Lindenmayer said.

'I expect scientific advice, for example, on what constitutes an infective dose of BSE and whether and how the BSE agent can be totally inactivated in food. I also want the group to advise ANZFA on whether BSE can be naturally transmitted to sheep and goats.

'In addition, the expert group will be asked to advise on the current scientific view that there is little risk of exposure to the BSE agent from milk and dairy products, gelatin, fats and tallow sourced from BSE risk countries.

'We have no evidence to believe such foods present a problem, but consider it essential that such conclusions be rigorously examined.'

The BSE Expert Group will remain in place until 31 October 2001, at which time ANZFA will have completed its risk assessment. The Group held its first meeting by teleconference on 29 March 2001. Members are:

Mr Peter Board Peter Board Pty Ltd, Australia (canning processes)

Dr Linda Detwiler United States Department of Agriculture (sheep diseases)

Dr Stephen Dixon Veterinary Public Health Unit, Food Standards Agency, UK (Coordinator of BSE Research)

Ms Amanda Hill, Food Safety Program, ANZFA

Dr Deborah Middleton Australian Animal Health Laboratory, CSIRO, Australia (diagnostics)

Dr Roger Morris Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences, Massey University, New Zealand (epidemiology)

Dr Alex Proudfoot Medical Advisor, ANZFA (Chairman)

Dr Ron Rogers Food Directorate, Health Canada (risk assessment)

Mr Bill Spooncer Food Science Australia, Australia (rendering)

Dr David Taylor Neuropathogenesis Unit, Institute for Animal Health, UK (stability of TSE gene)

The risk assessment being undertaken by ANZFA, and involving the BSE Expert Group, will lead to an assessment report which will be made available for public scrutiny and comment.

'We are working very closely with other government agencies to ensure that no stone is left unturned in understanding the nature of the BSE problem and in putting measures in place which provide the public with the required level of safety,' Mr Lindenmayer said.

'ANZFA has established its own expert group because it needs advice from people who are intimately involved in food production ( who are at the leading edge of the scientific understanding of BSE and its effects.

'This work will be in addition to the broader work of the National Health and Medical Research Council's special expert committee on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which ANZFA will also be drawing on.

'Australia and New Zealand have one of the safest food supplies in the world. We expect to keep it that way.'