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Health warning over animal brain disease
Consumers should consider avoiding mutton and some traditional sausages to reduce the risk from a new animal brain disease, says Britain's food watchdog.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is warning that it cannot rule out a danger from "atypical scrapie" in sheep, which is similar to BSE in cattle.
The disease is thought to be more prevalent in the UK's sheep herd than classical scrapie, which has been recognised for centuries. However, it was detected only a few years ago after advances in testing.
Guidance for consumers prepared by the FSA stresses that it is not yet possible to determine what risk, if any, the disease poses.
Consumers are being urged to consider avoiding mutton to reduce the health risk
Controls already in place on animal feed and the cuts of meat that can be sold should also reduce the danger, it adds.
"Whilst the Agency is not advising anyone to stop eating sheep or goat meat or products, any possible risk could be reduced further by not eating meat from older animals," it says.
"This is because if there were a risk it would be greater in older animals.
"In addition, some sausages are contained in natural sheep casings made from sheep intestines which are more likely to carry the disease agent and therefore could present a greater risk."
A paper written for an FSA board meeting says that about 82,000 sheep in Britain may be infected, compared with an estimated 56,000 with classical scrapie.
Experiments have shown that the disease can be transmitted to mice in laboratory conditions, and a "theoretical" risk to humans cannot be excluded, according to the paper.
