001129 Italy Issues Ban on French Beef

Rome - Italy banned most beef imports from France, a measure intended to prevent so-called mad cow disease from spreading in the country.

The decision comes after a European Union meeting failed to take action against the spread of the fatal, brain-wasting ailment. Italy has been lobbying for tighter EU controls.

Agriculture Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said the ban includes steer more than 18 months old, believed to be more likely to contract the infection, and T-bone steak, also recently banned by the French government.

On Wednesday, the government had issued a ban on livestock feed containing meat.

Italy has been free of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, which scientists think may be spread by animal-based livestock feed. But an increase in reported cases in France has frightened Italian consumers.

More than 30 cities have taken beef off their school menus and beef sales have dropped 10%, according to Italy's butchers association.

Mad cow disease has been linked to a similar human malady called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The spongiform diseases eat holes in the brains of victims, and no cure has been discovered.

In Paris on Friday, the families of two French victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease filed a legal suit for poisoning, charging that authorities in France, Britain and Europe did not act quickly enough to stamp out mad cow disease.

The suit alleges that Laurence Duhamel, who died last February at the age of 36, and 19-year-old Arnauld Eboli, who is alive but very ill, were victims of poisoning and involuntary homicide.

“Our son is dying. We hope measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again,” said Dominique Eboli, the mother of Arnaud, who was at the Paris courthouse.

The case is the first of its kind linked to mad cow disease in France. The court will open a judicial investigation, and then an investigating magistrate will be assigned to the case.

Apart from the man cited in the suit, one other person has died from the disease in France. In Britain, where an outbreak of mad cow disease was first detected in the late 1980s, around 80 people have died from the human variant.

In 1996, the EU banned all British beef exports. It lifted the prohibition in August 1999 as a result of the safety measures and evidence that mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was on its way out in Britain.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com