Government urges calm as it prepares animal feed ban

BERLIN (AP) _ Germany's government urged consumers not to panic about beef safety Monday after the mad cow crisis spread to German herds, though a top farm lobbyist conceded more cases were likely

Monday, November 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BERLIN (AP) _ Germany's government urged consumers not to panic about beef safety Monday after the mad cow crisis spread to German herds, though a top farm lobbyist conceded more cases were likely to be found.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder renewed calls for joint European Union steps to fight the food scare, saying ``this is not only a German problem.'' Germany, along with other EU countries, has already pledged to step up testing for the disease.

Officials last week confirmed that a cow born and raised in Germany had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, for the first time. Germany had long claimed to be free of the disease, linked by scientists to a brain-destroying human ailment that has killed over 80 people in Europe.

A second German-born animal exported to Portugal also tested positive for the disease last week.

``There's still no reason for panic,'' deputy Health Minister Erwin Jordan told Suedwestrunkfunk radio. ``We must now investigate just how great the danger of BSE in Germany actually is.''

The government set up a telephone hotline to advise worried consumers as officials admitted the country's beef, very little of which is imported, no longer seemed as safe as previously thought.

Members of the Greens' party _ junior partners in the government _ advised people to buy higher quality meat sold in health food shops, while a top medical institute told consumers to steer clear of risky cuts such as T-bone steaks.

Gerd Sonnleitner, president of the German Farmers' Association, told ZDF television that more extensive testing was likely to turn up more cases among German cattle.

Meanwhile, the government laid out how it plans to stop farmers feeding livestock with meat and bone meal suspected of harboring mad cow disease.

Officials said Monday said they will ask parliament to approve Friday an emergency law banning the use of grounds animal carcasses in feed for all livestock. The practice has already been outlawed across the EU for cattle and sheep feed since 1994.

Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke, who had previously insisted that the disputed feed was safe, urged the upper house of parliament to pass the law Friday so that it could come into force the following day, though farmers are to be allowed to feed remaining stocks of the meal to animals as usual.

Contaminated meat and bone meal in animal feed is suspected as the source of BSE in cows. Some scientists believe humans can contract a similar fatal brain-wasting disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, by eating infected beef.