Roland Heynkes, 26.9.2002 (minor addition at 1.12.2002) (Translation by Ingrid Schütt-Abraham)
One of the principles of the new consumer protection policy in Germany and the European Union is that consumers should be informed as best as possible about the known and unknown risks of food to enable them to decide for themselves what risk they are willing to take and at which cost. This new thinking follows the precautionary principle and has especially been propagated by Minister Künast in the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMVEL). Also the former Agricultural Ministry which has to take much of the responsibility for the BSE crisis was re-structured following this principle.
It appears odd, then, that subordinate bodies to this newly structured Consumer Ministry should violate this new spirit. Nevertheless such an infringement happened when the Bundesanstalt für Fleischforschung (Federal Meat Research Institute) underestimated the importance of the detection of Nitrofen, a long since prohibited substance, in a sample examined for a private customer, and due to this misinterpretation failed to forward a warning to the BMVEL. And now the Bundesanstalt für Milchforschung (BafM) in Kiel (Federal Institute for Milk Research) releases a general statement that from the viewpoint of food safety (pathogens) no significant consumer-relevant differences exist between ecologically and conventionally produced milk [BAM,AHO,IDW].
However, there exists one highly significant difference between dairy cows raised according to ecological or conventional regimes, as the vast majority of today's milk producing cows have been born before it was prohibited to feed animal fat to calves. Only since the 2.12.2000 milk replacer must not contain animal fat when produced in Germany [RH2], as this fat if originating from a BSE-infected cow not detected at slaughter could contain infectious nervous tissue [GH1,GH2,GH3,GH4,GH5,GH6], and as prions are much more resistant to heat in fat than in water [JKN]. According to the European Fat Processors and Renderers Associaton (EFPRA) animal fat became only gently heat-treated in oder to maintain the high quality of tallow when used for calf milk replacers [SSC]. Provided this feed ban issued by the Federal Government was not just a costly and with regar to consumer protection irrelevant nonsense one has to assume a consumer-relevant or at least not calculable risk that part of the conventionally kept dairy cows have become BSE-infected by animal fat as ingredient in their milk replacer. Infectious animal fat could also provide an explanation for the BSE cases which occurred in British cattle born after the ban [DEF], i.e. after the absolute and strict enforcement of the MBM-ban coming into effect on the 1.8.1996 [RH1] . To milk replacer as a source of infection for German cattle points also the fact that most of the British BSE cases have become infected during their first weeks of life [RH3].
Contrary to conventional agricultural systems the use of milk replacers containing animal fat was never permitted by Demeter and has since the 7.12.1993 been forbidden by Bioland. Generally the ecological agriculture was refraining from using feed not produced on the farm [BIO,DEM]. Thus until now in more than 180.000 British and 214 German BSE cases not a single case has been found in cattle raised from birth in compliance with the guidelines of ecological agriculture [NA1,NA2,NA3]. Statistically ecologically raised dairy cows bear thus a significantly lower risk of incubating BSE than conventionally raised dairy cows.
Of course this significantly higher BSE risk of conventional dairy cows cannot simply be transposed to their milk. It is imaginable that BSE infectivity in an infected dairy cow does not even reach its milk. So far milk has never been demonstrated to contain BSE-infectivity [RH4]. However, the sensitivity of all experiments and observations investigating this question has been so low that their results do not provide much safety [RH4]. It could only be proven that following the ingestion of half a liter of milk of a BSE-sick cow the chance to survive would be at least 50% [RH4].
The Bundesanstalt für Milchforschung knows these experiments but evaluated them only qualitatively and saw them in their press release of 17.1.2001 as convincing proof of the BSE-safety of milk [TEU]. That an opinion written by me on behalf of the Northrhine-Westphalian Ministry for Consumer Protection evaluating the data quantitatively arrived at a much less comforting conclusion [RH4] has until now been ignored by the Bundesanstalt für Milchforschung (BafM) although due to contacts by phone the BafM was made aware of this opinion which is also freely accessible via the Internet.
Conventionally kept cattle thus bear a significantly higher BSE-risk than ecologically kept dairy cows, and it is scientifically totally unknown whether the milk of BSE-infected cows might be infectious [RH4]. This was not only known to the Bundesanstalt für Milchforschung in Kiel but could have been easily researched. Why then does the BafM ignore this and claims that there are no relevant advantages for the consumer in ecologically produced milk compared to conventionally produced milk, and explicitly mentions pathogens [BAM,AHO,IDW]? Why is the mature consumer not told the truth about the great scientific insecurity concerning the BSE safety of milk and lets him decide by himself how to judge the remaining risk? From my point of view it is inacceptable and not in compliance with the new policy of the Consumer Ministry that a Federal body simply disregards a risk as irrelevant which is by no means quantifiable.
AHO . AHO-Pressemeldung - Ökomilch: Keine verbraucherrelevanten Vorteile - http://ticker-grosstiere.animal-health-online.de/20020925-00000/
JKN . Appel,T.; Wolff,M.; von Rheinbaben,F.; Heinzel,M.; Riesner,D. - Heat stability of prion rods and recombinant prion protein in water, lipid and lipid-water mixtures - Journal of General Virology 2001 Feb; 82(Pt 2): 465-73 - http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/82/2/465
BIO . Bioland e.V. Verband für organisch-biologischen Landbau - Bioland Richtlinien - http://www.bioland.de/richtlinien/rili-april-02_klein.PDF
BAM . Bundesanstalt für Milchforschung - Ökomilch: Keine verbraucherrelevanten Vorteile - http://ticker-grosstiere.animal-health-online.de/20020925-00000/
DEF . DEFRA BSE information - Suspect cases born on or after 01 January 1996 - http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/bse/bse-statistics/bse/bab-sus.html
DEM . Forschungsring für Biologisch-Dynamische Wirtschaftsweise e. V. - Erzeugungsrichtlinien für die Anerkennung der Demeter-Qualität - http://www.demeter.de/demeter/dem_richtlinien.pdf
RH1 . Heynkes,R. (10.2.2000) - Die Entwicklung der Maßnahmen gegen eine Ausbreitung von Scrapie und BSE über Nahrungsketten - http://www.heynkes.de/vfverbot.htm
RH2 . Heynkes,R. (23.12.2000) - Das Gesetz über das Verbot des Verfütterns, des innergemeinschaftlichen Verbringens und der Ausfuhr bestimmter Futtermittel - www.heynkes.de/bann.htm
RH3 . Heynkes,R. (18.9.2001) - Die meisten BSE-Kühe wurden als Kälber infiziert - www.heynkes.de/peaks.htm
RH4 . Heynkes,R. (12.12.2001) - BSE-Sicherheit von Milch - www.heynkes.de/milch.htm
GH1 . Hildebrandt,G.; Lücker,E.; Rauscher,K. - BSE-Risiko der Lebensmittel Fleisch und Milch - Bundesgesundheitsblatt 2001; 44: 437-49 - http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00103/bibs/1044005/10440437.htm
GH2 . Hildebrandt,G.; Rauscher,K.; Buda,S.; Budras,K.-D.; Eggers,T.; Fries,R. - Periphere Nervenzellen als Risikomaterial - DLG-Empfehlungen zur Entfernung von extracerebrospinalen Neuronen - Broschüre der DeutschenLandwirtschafts-Gesellschaft e.V. - www.dlg.org
GH3 . Eggers,T.; Fries,R.; Buda,S.; Budras,K.-D.; Hildebrandt,G.; Rauscher,K. - Bewertung von Nervengewebe des Rinderschädels als BSE-Risikomaterial - Extracerebrospinale Strukturen des autonomen Nervensystems zwischen Darmtrakt und zentralem Nervensystem - 1. Ganglien des Kopfes - Fleischwirtschaft 2002; 82(5): 108-11
GH4 . Hildebrandt,G.; Rauscher,K.; Buda,S.; Budras,K.-D.; Eggers,T.; Fries,R. - Bewertung des parasymphatischen Nervensystems als BSE-Risikomaterial - Extracerebrospinale Strukturen des autonomen Nervensystems zwischen Darmtrakt und zentralem Nervensystem - 2. Nervus vagus - Fleischwirtschaft 2002; 82(6): 121-4
GH5 . Buda,S.; Budras,K.-D.; Eggers,T.; Fries,R.; Hildebrandt,G.; Rauscher,K. - Bewertung symphatischer Para- und Praevertebralganglien als BSE-Risikomaterial - Extracerebrospinale Strukturen des autonomen Nervensystems zwischen Darmtrakt und zentralem Nervensystem - 3. Sympathisches Nervensystem - Fleischwirtschaft 2002; 82(8): 95-7
GH6 . Hildebrandt,G.; Rauscher,K. - Eradikations- und Präventivmaßnahmen inklusive Rechtsverfahren - Fleischwirtschaft 2002; 82(9): 137-40
IDW . Informationsdienst Wissenschaft - Auch Öko-Milch hat hohe Qualität - http://idw-online.de/public/zeige_pm.html?pmid=53237
NA1 . Naturkost.de - Keine 100 Prozent Sicherheit - http://www.naturkost.de/bse/bse7.htm
NA2 . Naturkost.de (1.3.2001) - Erstes Bio-Rind unter BSE-Verdacht - http://www.naturkost.de/2001/010301o4.htm
NA3 . Naturkost.de (7.3.2001) - Bio-Rind hatte kein BSE! - http://www.naturkost.de/2001/010307o3.htm
TEU . Teufel,P. (17.1.2001) - Feststellung zum wissenschaftlichen Kenntnisstand über die Sicherheit von Milch und Milcherzeugnissen in Bezug auf BSE - Wissenschaftler sehen derzeit kein BSE-Risiko durch Milch und Milcherzeugnisse - http://www.bafm.de/BSE%2017%20Januar%202001/BSE17J_1.htm
SSC . Scientific Steering Committee (29.6.2001) - The safety of tallow obtained from ruminant slaughter by-products - http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/ssc/out228_en.pdf, page 9
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Copyright Roland Heynkes and Ingrid Schütt-Abraham, 26. September 2002