The Food Standards Agency has funded research to assess the oral transmissibility of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) to pigs and poultry (research transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food’s portfolio). The European Commission has funded research on prion disease in fish.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published opinions on the residual BSE risk of meat and bone meal (The EFSA Journal (2005) 257, 1-30); on feeding fish meal to ruminants (The EFSA Journal (2007) 443, 1-26); and on feeding animal proteins to farm animals (The EFSA Journal (2007) 576, 1-41).
In December 2007 the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) considered the potential for TSE risks associated with future options for permitting processed animal protein (PAP) into livestock feed, arising from the European Commission’s TSE Roadmap. The scientific papers are available on SEAC’s website. SEAC is preparing a statement for publication.
There is also an EU-coordinated test development project (SAFEED-PAP) under way to develop and validate official testing methods capable of reliably identifying PAP from different species in feed samples. Such tests may provide the necessary control tools to allow consideration of future proposals to use non-ruminant-derived PAP in the feeding of non-ruminant livestock. Improved testing methods will also support EU-wide monitoring for compliance with the current controls. DEFRA is contributing to SAFEED-PAP through the funding of research at the Veterinary Laboratory Agency (SE1797) and the Central Science Laboratory (SE1798).