Haggis caught in confusion on human risk of sheep disease

Published on Thursday 15 June 2006 00:13

CONSUMERS are to be told that avoiding mutton is the only way to reduce the risk to humans of an animal brain disease, prompting fury from meat producers including Scotland's best-known haggis maker.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has admitted it cannot rule out a risk to human health from the brain disease atypical scrapie, which is similar to BSE.

The agency is meeting today to discuss the new advice, and whether to press for a Europe-wide ruling on the labelling of mutton, which includes sheep intestines. But although the FSA plans to tell shoppers how to reduce the risk, it has no idea of the probability that a human could contract the disease.

Jo Macsween, director of Midlothian-based haggis specialist Macsween, expressed "total and utter frustration" with the FSA, claiming its new advice could cause confusion over whether haggis was safe to eat.

She said: "We don't use sheep intestines for our haggis, contrary to popular belief, and neither do most other manufacturers I'm aware of, but this advice doesn't make that clear. And we use lamb not mutton. This is the first we've heard of this new advice, and it is bound to cause confusion. I just wish we had been consulted - we are supposed to be working together as an industry."

She added: "Luckily for our business, consumers are so fed up with hearing about bogus food scares that they will probably ignore the advice and keep buying haggis. But that makes you wonder what would happen if we had a real food scare."

John Thorley, of the National Sheep Association, echoed her concern and described the new advice as "total and utter rubbish". He said: "This is silly because you take a risk every time you get out of bed. It seems absurd to tell consumers how they can avoid a risk without knowing what the actual risk is."

Mutton accounts for a quarter of sheep meat sold in Britain and is used in many meat pies, curries and some ready meals.

The FSA will today decide if it should press the European Commission for the introduction of rules that force manufacturers to identify products containing mutton. At present, there is not even an accepted legal definition of what mutton is.

The agency said that it was updating guidance because it did not know whether atypical scrapie - a brain-wasting disease that has been known in sheep for more than 100 years - could affect humans.

The new advice says: "While the FSA is not advising anyone to stop eating sheep or goat meat or products, any possible risk could be reduced further by not eating meat from older animals."

It adds: "In addition, some sausages are contained in natural sheep casings made from sheep intestines which are more likely to carry the disease agent and therefore could present a greater risk."