Governments sued over CJD

How mad now, cow?

Relatives of two French victims of the human form of "mad cow disease", or BSE, are suing the French and British governments and the European Commission.

Mad cow disease exists and it's serious. One must take precautions but not panic

European Commission President Romano Prodi

A lawyer acting jointly for 19-year-old Arnaud Eboli, who is suffering from new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and Laurence Duhamel, who died from the disease last February aged 36, has filed a suit in a Paris civil court.

It accuses Britain of exporting possibly contaminated material, and France and the European Commission of failing to take the threat of disease seriously enough.

A spokesman for the Commission said "it considers itself not guilty of any improprieties," but that a defence case would be drawn up.

Shades of HIV scandal

France has just banned beef on the bone and suspect animal feed because of renewed fears about the disease.

France has just banned beef on bone

A consumer alarm broke out after the revelation last month that tonnes of meat from a BSE-infected herd had gone on sale in French supermarkets.

Hundreds of French schools have alread dropped beef from their menu, while sales of beef have slumped by 40%.

The BBC's Paris correspondent, James Coomarasamy, says that if French courts decide to pursue the case, it will revive memories of the HIV-infected blood scandal of the 1990s, when several government ministers were put on trial for their role in a public health scare.

So far only two people are confirmed to have died of the human variant of BSE in France, compared with more than 80 deaths in Britain over the past decade.

But the number of BSE cases recorded this year in France has more than tripled since last year to 101.

European repercussions

The BSE scare is already having repercussions across Europe.

Italy's Agriculture Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said that Rome was expected to introduce a ban on Friday on imports of French beef from high-risk animals and of beef on the bone.

The German Farm Minister, Karl-Heinz Funke, said he would take steps to ensure that French animal feed "which is not considered safe in its own country" was not sold in Germany.

Meanwhile the Netherlands discovered the country's first case of BSE for 20 months on Thursday. An Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman said parliament had been informed.

The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, on a visit to Athens, tried to play down fears over the disease.

"Mad cow disease exists and it's serious. One must take precautions but not panic," Mr Prodi said.

He said the Commission had asked European Union member-states to conduct tests for BSE and would keep insisting on this, but it could not impose testing on national authorities.