Evening Press Reader's Letter

City of York Council is to survey parents in February to determine whether beef should be served in York schools.

I have children in a York school so I have an interest. I also eat all British meat except beef and I would like to explain why.

Scientists have recently proven that nvCJD is caused from eating BSE infected beef, and even worse, that there is no species barrier to protect humans from his deadly infection. nvCJD has claimed 48 lives so far in the UK and ten more people are suffering with the infection, including a 13-year-old girl.

The Government Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, has said "the size of the epidemic could be a small one, in other words in the hundreds, or a very large one, in the hundreds of thousands". This makes me very angry that so many good, decent British people could have been put at risk in such a way, and I include farmers.

I know the feed ban in 1996 was supposed to make beef safe, but there was a ban in 1988, and that initially had a strong effect, but levelled out at about one case in 200 with BSE going into the food chain. It would be a fair assumption that these remain the figures despite the stricter food ban. We will not know for certain till 2001 when figures on cattle with BSE are collected.

If BSE is still going into the food chain, I would not advise exposure of children to infected meat. Therefore I would advise parents that the beef ban should stay.

Let democracy be done, provided it is informed!

Chris Clayton,

Hempland Drive,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.