12:40 - 21.10.2004
Bulgarian MPs Warn of Unreliable Mad Cow Control
SOFIA, Oct. 20 (bnn)--A couple of MPs said Thursday that mad cow control
on imported veal and beef in Bulgaria was unreliable and asked a
prosecutor to investigate the country’s top veterinary official for
allegedly importing flawed tests from the Netherlands.
SOFIA (bnn)- A couple of MPs said Thursday that mad cow control on
imported veal and beef in Bulgaria was unreliable and asked a prosecutor
to investigate the country’s top veterinary official for allegedly
importing flawed tests from the Netherlands.
Borislav Kitov and Plamen Kenarov, lawmakers for an agrarian party, told
journalists that veterinary service chief Kiril Kirov had replaced last
April French mad cow tests by Dutch ones, which were not recognised in
Bulgaria and in the EU.
Because of this, since last July Bulgarian veterinary authorities
haven’t issued certificates that imported beef and veal is free from mad
cow contagion, the lawmakers said.
“Today we are facing a real hazard of spreading the mad cow disease in
Bulgaria,” Kenarov said.
He said he and Kitov informed Prosecutor General Nikola Filchev of the
issue.
Kenarov accused Minister of Agriculture Mehmed Dikme of covering up
Kirov’s alleged wrongdoing and spreading a “political umbrella” over him.
Dikme and Kirov would not immediately react to the allegations.
Bulgaria has so far been free from the lethal mad cow disease or Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy, whose human form is known as the
Creuzfeld-Jakob Syndrome. /bnn
http://www.bgnewsnet.com/
TSS
