THE risk from BSE-infected cows buried in East Lancashire have been assessed at between one in a million and one in ten million, Burnley Borough Council has been assured.

Health risk fears from infected cows buried at Rowley Tip, Burnley, are causing concern for the council which is continuing to press for more research into BSE.

Council environmental health staff have carried out exhaustive inquiries with scientific and medical experts and have concluded on present evidence that the risk of infection is minimal.

"The best advice we have is that the safest course of action is to leave the carcasses alone,'' said Coun Philip Walsh, chairman of the Public Protection Committee.

"However, we will be continuing to press the government for more research into BSE and the risks of infection,'' he added.

Coun Walsh said they had quizzed Lancashire County Council, as the local waste disposal authority, the government and the Environmental Agency. The best information was that the risk of human infection was very small.

After studies at six of the 59 tips across the country where BSE-infected cattle were buried between 1988 and 1991, the Environment Agency's risk assessment of infection from the buried animals is between one in a million and one in ten million.

That compares to the risking of dying from cancer at one in 300 and being killed in a road accident at one in 10,000.

But the study, says Coun Walsh, admits that in the case of BSE, science does not yet have all the answers.

He added: "We have to accept that this advice is the best available on current evidence.

"But there are still many unanswered questions about the safety of burying infected carcasses and we will continue pressing the government for more research on behalf of local residents.''

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