Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-15-Speech-2-134"
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"en.20000215.7.2-134"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to remind you of the composition of our food chain and how important it is for this chain to provide us with safe, healthy food which is produced, as a matter of principle, without any questionable or risky interim or end products.
Over recent years, these basic principles have often been neglected in animal husbandry and in epidemiological matters because of shoddy practice or greed. The European Parliament has already taken a clear stand on BSE and I think that we should do likewise on all epidemics in animals. We should not allow food safety to be compromised because, in the final analysis, it is our health which is at stake.
The Commission’s proposal encompasses both the transportation and the placing on the market of sheep and goats and a Community regulation to fight scrapie. This is even more important given that there is no clear proof that BSE and scrapie are unrelated. Animals are bought throughout Europe and transported over the entire continent. The spread of an epidemic as the result of bringing in one sick animal can have huge consequences for farmers. And I should point out that, for the first time in history, a case of scrapie was detected in Austria about four weeks ago.
Scrapie is a particularly insidious disease because the pathogen can remain active in dust for years and is then ingested in food. The disease is always fatal. As there is no vaccination, farmers can only protect themselves by not buying animals from countries in which there are cases of scrapie. Even if scrapie cannot be passed on to human beings, the connection with BSE has still not been clarified, as I have already said. As a farmer myself, I am most concerned that consumer health should not be put at risk.
I am in favour of preventive measures, starting with feeding which is suitable for the species, rather than measures to combat an epidemic once it has broken out. I therefore welcome the Commission’s initiative to create a new legal base for combating scrapie."@en1
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