By the middle of 1990, the basic Community legislation on BSE was in place, as far as live cattle and meat were concerned and has been amended and refined since strictly following scientific recommendations.

On 28 July 1989, the Commission introduced the first Community law on BSE. Although BSE was generally assumed to be "scrapie of cattle", and scrapie was known to pose no risk to human health, measures were taken to protect the health of European consumers against any hypothetical possibility of transmission of the disease from cattle.

Chronological list

See related reports and overview documentation section.

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