between the uk and other eu states, dubbed "beef war" by media. restrictions remained for beef containing "vertebral material" and for beef sold on the bone. france continued to impose a ban on british beef illegally long after the european court of justice had ordered it to lift its blockade, although it has never paid any fine for doing so. russia was proceeding to lift the ban sometime after november 2012 after 16 years; the announcement was made during a visit by the uk's chief veterinary officer nigel gibbens. it was successfully negotiated that beef from wales was allowed to be exported to the dutch market, which had formerly been an important market for northern irish beef. of two approved export establishments in the united kingdom in 1999, one was in scotland – an establishment to which live beef was supplied from northern ireland. as the incidence of bse was very low in northern ireland – only six cases of bse in 1999 – partly due to the early adoption of an advanced herd tagging and computerization system in the region, calls were made to remove the eu ban on exports with regard to northern irish beef. similar wildcat bans from countries known to have bse were imposed in various european countries, although these were mostly subsequently ruled illegal. the economist noted, "unfortunately, much of the crisis in europe can be blamed on politicians and bureaucrats. even while some european countries were clamouring for bans on british beef, they were ignoring warnings from the european commission about how to avoid the spread of bse in their own herds." history different hypotheses exist for the origin of bse in cattle. one hypothesis suggests it may have jumped species from the scrapie disease in sheep, and another hypothesis suggests that it evolved from a rare spontaneous form of "mad cow disease" that has been seen occasionally in cattle for many centuries. in the 5th century bc, hippocrates described a similar illness in cattle and sheep, which he believed also occurred in humans. publius flavius vegetius renatus recorded cases of a disease with similar characteristics in the fourth and fifth centuries ad. in more recent uk history, the official bse inquiry (published 2000) suggested that the outbreak there "probably arose from a single point source in the southwest of england in the 1970s".