Britain Proposes Phased Killing of Millions of Cattle

British agriculture officials Monday proposed a phased destruction of about 4.5 million cattle--three-quarters of a million annually--as a step to assure consumers that diseased beef is off the world’s markets.

They presented the plan to the European Union at a meeting in Luxembourg, according to Ben Gill, vice president of Britain’s National Farmers Union, in an effort to obtain financial aid for the “selective slaughter” and a lifting of the EU’s worldwide ban on British beef exports.

EU agriculture officials said, however, that a quick end to the ban is highly unlikely.

Government officials would not comment on the proposal, but it had been anticipated since March 20, when researchers sparked the “mad cow disease” scare by revealing new findings suggesting a link between it and a fatal human ailment, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prime Minister John Major told the House of Commons that the government is still negotiating with the EU, the 15-nation organization that regulates trade and agricultural policy in Western Europe.

The culling of Britain’s 11-million-strong herd would target older cattle--primarily dairy cows older than 30 months that have outlived their milking productivity. Ordinarily slaughtered for beef and beef byproducts, they would be killed and burned instead at a rate of 15,000 per week.

Gradually, it is believed, this would eliminate those most susceptible to bovine spongiform encephalopathy--called “mad cow disease” by the public--and reassure consumers that they face no risk from it.

Herds that have been exposed to the disease--about 15% of the total--also might be targeted.

Since the mid-1980s, Britain has counted more than 150,000 cases of the bovine disease. The incidence has declined, however, since scientists concluded that it probably originated in cattle feed mixed with ground-up, diseased sheep parts, a practice largely eliminated by 1992, according to British farmers.