YET another Mad Cow Disease scare flares as the government bans the sale of beef on the bone.

Ribs, T-bone steaks and oxtail are swept from the table as scientific tests reveal the infection inside cattle bones.

The danger, we are told, is minute.

But, says agriculture minister Dr Jack Cunningham, he is not prepared to take any chances with public health.

That is the right attitude.

And if the BSE risk had been reacted to as quickly and seriously by the previous government which, over almost a decade, seemed more anxious to play down the dangers before admitting them, then the damage done to farming and the food industry by consumers' mistrust might have been nothing like as grave.

But though the harm done to the food and farm industries is regrettable, it is the consumers' safety which must come first.

And, in contrast to the Tories with their dither and contradictions over BSE, this Labour government has grasped that priority now it is in charge. And though beef rearers and retailers may protest that the ban on beef on the bone is a gross over-reaction, it would be a folly to let commercial interests influence food safety - and not just for health reasons.

For it is public suspicion that, under the previous government, just such influence was at work that has helped to swell consumers' doubt and mistrust.

As a result, in the light of this latest scare, many may be asking just what is safe and may start avoiding the beef cuts and products which they are officially told is safe.

But if that is an unfortunate consequence of how the Mad Cow crisis has been previously handled - and it will be one that Labour will be hard-pressed to reverse - is not the whole issue of BSE's entry into the food chain down to the gross error in the first place of man, through greed, trying to deceive Nature by turning cows into cannibals?

It serves us right.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.