Germany sets emergency measures to fight mad cow disease

BONN, Germany - German officials agreed Saturday on emergency measures to fight mad cow disease, including an immediate ban on the use of meat and bone meal in all animal feed.

The quick agreement came after the first two German-born cows tested positive this week for the disease.

The feed ban, promised Friday by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, was confirmed by a meeting of state and federal agriculture officials. An emergency federal ordinance will likely take effect Wednesday, and spot checks for the disease in German herds also will be stepped up, deputy agriculture minister Martin Wille said.

Contaminated meat and bone meal in animal feed is suspected as the source of the disease in cows. Some scientists believe humans can contract a similar fatal brain-wasting disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, by eating infected beef.

German testing had previously detected the disease in cows, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, only in animals imported from Britain and Switzerland. Officials had long insisted German beef was safe even as the disease, known as BSE, spread in neighboring countries.

The vice president of the main German farmers' lobby, Wilhelm Niemeyer, said Saturday that stockpiles of ground animal meal - enough for 10 days to two weeks - would still have to be used up.

Germany and Spain were criticized Saturday by the European Union's top health and consumer protection official, David Byrne, for their slow response to the disease.

''Germany and Spain may have been too complacent about the risk of BSE,'' Byrne said in a statement issued in Brussels, Belgium. ''Despite scientific risk warning, not enough seems to have been done to guard against BSE in those member states.''

Sales of beef have dropped throughout Europe as fear spreads about mad cow disease.

Scientists believe mad cow disease originated in Britain, when cattle were given feed containing the ground remains of sheep infected with a brain ailment. That practice is now banned throughout the European Union.