German sausages linked to BSE

Germany's third case was found in this herd this week

The German government has issued an urgent warning about popular varieties of cooked sausage which could be infected with BSE.

The Health Ministry in Berlin has ordered the withdrawal from sale of a range of products which contain spinal meat from cattle which, if infected, can transmit the disease to humans.

The warning follows confirmation of a third case of BSE in Germany and just 24 hours after European Commissioner David Byrne suggested some German sausages still contained risky material.

I personally would not buy them

Andrea Fischer
German Health Minister

Health Minister Andrea Fischer said the government had to eliminate every real risk to the consumer after initially angrily rejecting Mr Byrne's comments.

And despite her reassurances, BBC correspondent Rob Broomby says nervous consumers have begun to turn up their noses at the ubiquitous German sausage.

Confidence shattered

Once, Germany believed itself to have the highest standards of meat production in Europe.

But the discovery of just three cases of BSE, compared with hundreds in France and thousands in Britain, has shattered consumer confidence.

Traditional vendors of sausage products report consumers are turning away in droves and figures show sales have been slashed by 20%

Newspapers have devoted pages to the possible dangers lurking under the skin of Germany's myriad varieties of sausage.

On Wednesday, the tabloid BZ carried a front-page picture of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder biting into a large hot-dog with the caption "BSE Horror - Does it still taste good, chancellor?"

'Helpless dismay'

"Helpless dismay at the sausage counter," read a headline on Bild newspaper.

We have to assume there can be more BSE cases

Karl-Heinz Funke
German Agriculture Minister

"Nobody knows for certain if German sausage is safe," said the Berliner Zeitung daily paper.

A meat industry spokesman dismissed Commissioner Burn's comments as ridiculous, and called the affair a storm in a teacup.

But many sausage manufacturers have already switched recipes to remove beef products.

German officials had claimed that German cattle were free from BSE - until the first case in a German-born cow was announced on 24 November. Two further cases have been confirmed since and more are expected.