French beef really is more dangerous than British. Christl Donnelly of
Imperial College, London, used the ages of cows reported in France as having BSE
to estimate the true size of the French epidemic. She found that between 5000
and 10,000 French cows probably acquired BSE after 1987 (Nature, vol
408, p 787). Of these, 52 that were within a year of developing symptoms, and
thus potentially infectious, were eaten this year alone. In Britain, only young
beef is eaten.
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