THE House of Commons divided sharply yesterday as the Health Secretary, Mr Stephen Dorrell, told MPs that infants and children were no more likely than adults to catch the human strain of so called mad cow disease.
As the cross party consensus broke down at Westminster, the government announced it would hold a debate in the Commons on Thursday on the crisis sparked by blast week's official admission of a possible link between BSE and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD).
And as the government stepped back from ordering a limited slaughter policy, Mr Dorrell reported that the view of scientific experts was that additional measures were not demanded "at this stage".
In the light of the evidence from the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), Mr Dorrell said there was "clearly no reason for the government to advise local education authorities to withdraw beef from school menus."
Provided current and newly recommended controls were rigorously enforced, the government believed the risk from beef was "extremely small."
Mr Dorrell said hospital patients, pregnant women and people taking immune suppressive drugs were not likely "to have any increased susceptibility to infection".
Amid mounting pressure for at least a limited cull of British cattle, the Agriculture Minister, Mr Douglas Hogg, indicated that he was not ready to sanction such drastic action. But he assured MPs that he would not hesitate to, "take further action if it proved justified.
Acknowledging that public confidence was "fragile", Mr Hogg said "I shall monitor it with scrupulous care. And I shall not hesitate to come before the House with further measures if it is clear that they are justified in the circumstances.
The Labour MP, Ms Harriet Harman, accused the British government of "reckless disregard for public health" and blamed the " dogma of deregulation" for the crisis sweeping the country.
"Last week, I said public confidence was hanging by a thread," she declared, "Now public confidence has collapsed."
The Liberal Democrats spokesman, Mr Simon Hughes, supported the thrust of the government's approach in the light of the recommendations from SEAC after more than 40 hours of talks over the weekend.
But as the Wimpy burger chain followed McDonald's in banning British beef, the Consumers' Association and some teachers' unions criticised Mr Dorrell's Commons performance.
Ms Sheila McKechnie, the director of the Consumers' Association, maintained the only way to avoid risk was for people to stop eating beef.
"The government's advice has done nothing to answer the key consumer demands about beef," she said. "The main question for the consumer remains whether to eat beef or not". That question still remains.
An education officer, Mr John Fowler, said "I would imagine most parents would want to seed schools keeping beef off menus for their children. Many local education authorities have gone beyond Mr Dorrell's advice and done that. This is a failure of leadership."
In the Commons, Mr Dorrell condemned Ms Harman for seeking party political advantage and turned the attack on Labour challenging the opposition front bench to say what alternative course it would take in light of the SEAC recommendations.
In considering the possibility of a specific risk to children, the committee had been joined by three leading experts in paediatrics, gastroenterology and immunology.
"The committee considered carefully its knowledge of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, and considered the evidence available from the 10 identified cases."
Taking all that into account, the committee concluded "If human infection with the BSE agent occurs, infants and small children are not likely to be more susceptible to that infection than are adults.
"Parents are naturally concerned about the risks to their own children. No human activity is without risk if the government rigorously enforces the current and newly recommended controls we believe that this risk is likely to be extremely small."