WE'VE had the mad cow crisis, and now boffins claim there could be a mad lamb crisis.

Laboratory experiments have shown sheep can develop the disease after eating heavily contaminated offal from cows.

Agriculture Minister Douglas Hogg says we mustn't panic because this is only a "theoretical risk".

But only last December he was assuring us British beef was totally safe.

Not surprisingly, the Government has gone into damage limitation overdrive in a bid to avert an economic disaster on the lines of the beef debacle.

However, this time there is a difference. The initial announcement has come from Europe, with an assurance that there is no evidence sheep can get BSE under farm conditions, or that the strain involved can be spread to people.

In short, we've been given an early alert to prevent panic, and it has been backed by plenty of detail.

How different from our own Government's handling of the BSE crisis when Mr Hogg denied everything only weeks before Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell admitted there was a risk.

Instead of a cover-up, the European Unions thinks we're grown-up enough to be given facts, unlike our own Government which took the "nanny knows best" attitude over BSE.

How refreshing.

And how embarrassing that the initiative had to come from Europe, where public welfare appears to matter more than vested interests

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