BSE fears spark pounds 1m milk probe

A pounds 1MILLION probe into fears that milk and dairy products carry the human form of mad cow disease has been ordered by agriculture minister Nick Brown.

The research is in spite of repeated Government promises that our daily pinta and other dairy products are totally safe.

The Food Standards Agency has asked scientists to carry out a three-year study into possible links "as soon as possible". They are being told to re-examine all previous studies, which have given milk and associated products the all clear.

Deaths from nv(new variant) CJD - the human form of BSE - have so far been blamed on eating meat from infected cattle. Some scientists fear that the earlier studies are not reliable and that the infective agent could be passed into milk.

Fourteen Britons died from nvCJD in the first six months of this year, as many as in the whole of 1999. Since 1995 it has claimed 69 lives.

The Food Standards Agency has stressed: "Milk IS safe." But a spokesman last night said that the new investigation was to "prove it beyond doubt".

AMERICAN tourists are being warned to avoid the great British banger. US Government advice is that steak or roast beef carry a lower risk of contracting nvCJD than processed meat.

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