010123 Germans Seek Mad Cow Steps

Berlin - Top German officials, facing growing pressure over their handling of the country's mad cow scare, proposed new steps Friday to counter concerns over infected beef.

Health Minister Andrea Fischer proposed ordering that cattle be tested at a younger age and Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke introduced an eight-point plan that includes tougher food safety inspections.

“Safety must extend from the farm to the shop counter,” Funke said at an emergency session of parliament's health and agriculture committees.

Funke has taken most of the heat since bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was first reported six weeks ago in cows born and raised in Germany, sending beef sales into a tailspin.

The European Union's health and consumer affairs chief criticized him for ignoring an EU warning last March that mad cow disease would likely be found in Germany.

And Germany's main farmer lobby accused the government of letting internal squabbling among the health, agriculture and environment ministries get in the way of anti-BSE measures.

“German farming families feel they are being left in the lurch,” the German Farmers' Union said, pushing for firm plans for establishing the source of BSE in Germany as well as “comprehensive quality assurance” rules for beef.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has stood behind both ministers, who have staunchly rejected calls for their resignation - in Fischer's case, even after she admitted mishaps in her ministry's response to the outbreak.

On Friday, she proposed lowering the age for mandatory testing of beef cattle to 24 months from 30 months. A 28-month-old cow tested positive for BSE in Bavaria earlier this week.

Funke's proposals Friday included calls for an EU-wide ban on feed including animal proteins and fats; tougher food safety inspections; more government money for food safety research, and legislation promoting organic cattle raising.

At the closed parliamentary committee session in Berlin, Fischer also was to lay out plans to ban all beef risk materials such as brain and spine from the food chain in Germany. Currently, the ban applies only to cows older than one year.

Germany has confirmed seven BSE cases. Scientists have linked the fatal cattle disease to a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a similar brain- destroying ailment in humans that has killed more than 80 people, mostly in Britain.

In Spain, three new cases of BSE were confirmed Friday in the northwestern provinces of Leon and Lugo, the Agriculture Ministry confirmed. Spain has recorded five cases of BSE since November.

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