ABSTRACT
It is an interesting paradox that as the certainty of research evidence is called more and more into question (for example following the bovine spongiform encephalopathy – BSE – controversy and other similar debates which have made press headlines), there is an increasing demand for practitioners in every field of service to the public to develop ‘evidence-based practice’. Moreover, the Treasury is calling for the ‘best evidence possible’. It is ironic that it took the BSE crisis to produce an effective regulatory system for animal foodstuffs and it is now illegal to feed lifestock on meat and bones from feedmills and farms in Britain. Slaughter houses are required to ensure that animal body parts are not resold and used in feed. Meanwhile in other parts of Europe recycling of insects, algae, used fat and cooking oils, besides the carcasses of all kinds of animals – including dogs, cats and rats – is still permitted, although scientists have discovered a link between transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) in cats and dogs and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. Professor Mac Johnson of the Royal Veterinary College and an adviser to the Economic Union Scientific Committee in The Sunday Telegraph (31 October 1999, p.20) was reported as saying ‘you should not recycle animals in feed … if you do, then you are risking an epidemic like the one we have just experienced’. It seems that the risks uncovered by research go unheeded as ‘the European Commission appears doomed to shut the stable doors after diseased animals have already bolted into the food chain’.
