1.   And Europe accused Britain of doing little to control the cattle disease and so hurting the entire European beef market.

2.   Actual cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human manifestation of mad-cow disease, are minuscule compared with total European beef consumption, he said.

3.   European beef is already banned by the United States because of mad cow disease, which can cause the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

4.   Even fears over mad cow disease were supposed to help Brazil, as customers of European beef turned elsewhere.

5.   The diseases that have crippled the European beef industry are not a threat to American herds, but complacency could change that, lawmakers and researchers said Wednesday.

6.   Other big European beef producers Ireland and France are also killing thousands of animals under the program.

7.   Australian farmers are running out of cows because demand has risen sharply after livestock diseases crippled the European beef industry, officials said Thursday.

8.   But the ban is unlikely to influence the European beef market, Fischler said, as Portugal is a small player on the market.

9.   But the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company is likely to have seen the worst of the European beef slowdown by spring, he said.

10.   Egypt last week banned all European beef imports, apparently fearing British beef could be re-exported by European processors.