Sir

In your News Story, “Japan's first BSE case fuels fears elsewhere” (Nature 413, 337; 2001), you state that “British farmers dumped [cattle feed containing animal parts] in the region [East Asia] when demand slumped in Europe in the early 1990s”. This is a careless statement, not up to the normal standards of your journal. British farmers did not and do not export animal feed. It is feed manufacturers who export feed.

As made clear in the exhaustive BSE inquiry report (see http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk), during 1989 and 1990 the UK authorities informed the Office International des Epizooties and the veterinary authorities in all countries importing meat and bone meal from the United Kingdom of the feed ban on UK domestic ruminants. The use of meat and bone meal in feed for non-ruminants (pigs and poultry) was legal in the United Kingdom until August 1996, and until January 2001 in the rest of the European Union (EU).

Meat and bone meal is still being used in animal feed in many non-EU countries, despite the BSE experiences of the United Kngdom and of the rest of the EU.