UK Bans Sale of Beef on the Bone

Date: December 16, 1997 • Location: London, United Kingdom

Amid an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the British government banned the sale of beef on the bone for human consumption.

The United Kingdom BSE outbreak was a major epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, an invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle, and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD). As of April 2023, 183,325 BSE cases in cattle and 178 human cases of vCJD have been reported in the United Kingdom.