EU advisers say high likelihood that Poland's cattle are BSE infected

The European Commission announced on Monday that its scientific advisers believed certain east European countries, including Poland, were likely to have mad cow disease, or BSE, in their cattle herds. The European Union's scientists issued the opinion as part of the Commission's assessment of mad cow risk in non-EU countries seeking to export beef to the 15-nation bloc. The advisers classified Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, the Slovak Republic, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania and Switzerland as "category III" countries, or those "likely to present a BSE risk, even if not confirmed, or presenting a low level of confirmed BSE risk". The Commission said the countries in this category had imported large amounts of live cattle and meat and bonemeal from EU countries where BSE has been confirmed. "Therefore it is regarded likely that their cattle herds were exposed to potentially BSE contaminated feed and subsequently infected," the Commission said in a statement. (Reuters)