alt Hacker News> As I understand it, this rule isn't because we have shown it's dangerous to do the pig -> insect -> pig chain but rather because we haven't shown that it's safe.
We banned all kinds of such "forced cannibalism" after BSE, yes. And for good reason, I think - not just is it highly unethical IMHO, but because even a minuscule risk of a repeat of the BSE crisis of the late 90s/early 00s just isn't worth it. The destruction that BSE brought upon the European agriculture industry, the public outrage - I doubt non-Europeans could even understand the impact it had.
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Just to clarify, pig -> insect -> pig wouldn't constitute cannibalism. But it's still a rather unusual (ie low frequency) food chain in nature so there's no reasonable assurance that it will be safe. Given how resilient prions can be and just how crazy some of the observed transmission pathways have been the current EU regulations seem quite sensible to me. (As a layman. To be clear I'm no expert on prion diseases.)
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I was born in the UK during BSE, and as a result I can’t give blood in Europe. People forget it but the scars are still there.