WASHINGTON (AP) - Travelers worried about eating beef in Europe can relax, health experts say.

There is little chance of getting mad cow disease in Europe, given the precautions now in place and the relatively few illnesses reported, a Senate committee was told Wednesday.

``The danger of driving to the airport is greater than eating meat in Europe,'' said Richard Johnson, a special adviser to the National Institutes of Health on mad cow and related diseases.

Europe's scares over mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease prompted Northwest Airlines to waive cancellation fees for passengers who wanted to postpone trips. Ireland's main airline, Aer Lingus, has cut fares to stimulate traffic. United and Northwest no longer serve beef on some flights.

U.S. airline traffic to Europe was about 5 percent higher last month than in March 2000, according to the Air Transport Association.

Foot-and-mouth is harmless to humans. But mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to a human brain-wasting disease, variant Creutzfeld Jakob Disease, that has killed an estimated 97 people in Britain since 1995 and a few more in continental Europe.

That disease is believed to have an incubation period of 10 years to 20 years, so it could have been contracted before Britain put into place controls on animal feed and meat processing.

Cases of mad cow have been reported in France, Portugal, Germany, Spain and Ireland in addition to Britain. A report by the European Union also says most Eastern and Central European countries are at risk because of the ``significant amounts'' of cattle and beef meal they imported from EU countries.

``It's much safer now to eat beef in Britain, although I've eaten beef in Britain throughout this thing,'' Johnson told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Mad cow disease is believed to be caused by a mutated protein that is transmitted through eating pieces of the brain or nervous system of an infected animal. Britain banned cattle brains and spinal cords from food in 1989.

Foot-and-mouth disease is caused by a virus and spreads far more easily. The epidemic of foot-and-mouth in Britain has led to the destruction or condemnation of more than a million animals.

Ground meat is the beef product most likely to carry mad cow because it is a mix of meat from many parts of the animal, said Alfonso Torres, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian. Beef roasts, steaks and other cuts of muscle are the least risky products, he said.

There has never been a confirmed case of mad cow in the United States, although there are similar diseases in sheep and deer that are not transmitted to humans, experts say.

Harvard University is finishing a comprehensive study of U.S. risks; it is due to be delivered to the federal government this spring.

The Agriculture Department halted the import of British cattle in 1989 and in 1997 extended the ban to several other European countries. Also in 1997, the Food and Drug Administration banned the feeding of mammalian proteins, such as meat and bone meal, to cud-chewing animals such as cattle and sheep.

``The likelihood of BSE is very low. It is not zero,'' said William Hueston, a University of Maryland scientist who was the co-chairman of a study of U.S. mad-cow risks by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, a group of scientific societies.

With the import bans in place, U.S. government and industry efforts have focused on preventing the spread of mad cow if it ever shows up in U.S. cattle.

The FDA says it has cracked down on feed mills and rendering plants that failed to comply with regulations intended to prevent animal proteins from being fed to cattle.

McDonald's Corp. and other fast-food companies have forced meatpackers and cattle suppliers to certify that cattle are being fed in accordance with the FDA's rules.

Also Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman updated President Bush on efforts to keep foot-and-mouth out of the United States. ``The United States has been free of foot-and-mouth since 1929, and our goal is to keep it that way,'' Veneman said.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.