Butcher welcomes CJD report

Traditional butchery practices implicated in vCJD cluster

An award-winning butcher has welcomed the official report into the cluster of variant CJD deaths in his village as "fair and well-researched".

Leicestershire Health Authority reported on Wednesday that traditional butchery practices could be partly to blame for the high incidence of vCJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease) in Queniborough.

Five people from the village have died of vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease.

David Clarke, 63, a butcher in Queniborough since 1981, said the report highlighted practices which had been commonplace but were no longer used due to what the meat industry had learned about BSE.

The head was regarded as a bonus. No one knew about the dangers of spinal cords

David Clarke
Butcher

The report highlighted a critical period between 1980 and 1991, a time when Mr Clarke said no one knew what BSE was.

"It is terrible what happened to these people, not only in this area, but in other parts of Britain," said Mr Clarke.

"But you can't blame anyone. Butchers were using methods that were traditional that everyone used."

Learning the lessons

The report found the vCJD victims had bought meat from butchers who typically split open the heads of slaughtered cows to remove the brains.

BSE-risk material - which is thought to be concentrated in the brain and spinal cord - may then have contaminated other cuts of meat via equipment such as knives.

It cannot be destroyed by usual cleaning methods.

Pamela Beyless, a regular visitor to Queniborough, died of vCJD

"No one had heard of BSE and no one knew there was any danger," said Mr Clarke.

The important thing was for Britain to learn lessons from BSE, he added.

Such a cluster of vCJD deaths could have happened in other parts of the country because "everyone was using the same methods," he said.

Mr Clarke who has been in the meat trade for 47 years said: "When I started there was food rationing.

"You needed all the food you could get. The head was regarded as a bonus.

"No one knew about the dangers of spinal cords and so on.

"But we have learned. The British meat industry is now squeaky clean."

However, Queniborough had been under a cloud since the CJD cluster was confirmed, he said.

"Queniborough used to be such a lovely name, a name you could trade on," he said.

"Now it just leaves a terrible feeling in your stomach. It really does."