Scientists warned as early as 1988 that "millions" of people could be affected by a human version of BSE, according to confidential documents obtained by a BBC programme.

While ministers maintained that British beef was safe to eat, scientists were uncertain about the dangers, in particular whether it was possible that BSE could be transferred to humans.

The programme also makes it clear that independent scientists appointed by the government to investigate BSE were uneasy about denials that beef was safe.

The document was written by civil servants for Sir Richard Southwood, Professor of Zoology at Oxford University, at the start of his inquiry into BSE in 1988.

This was eight years before the link between mad cow disease or BSE and its human equivalent, new variant CJD was isolated.

The paper told Professor Southwood that a test was urgently needed which could identify animals with BSE before they showed symptoms of the disease.

"Otherwise, were there a hazard to humans, it could be 10 or more years before it is revealed by clinical disease, by which time thousands/millions might have been infected," said the report.

The Southwood report concluded that the risks to human health were "remote and most unlikely".

But it added "if our assumptions are incorrect the implications would be extremely serious."

The document reveals that eating meat was being considered as one theoretical route for BSE to pass between cow and human. Other suggested means of infection were contact with blood, body fluids and even animal hides.

Sir Richard Southwood said: "We felt we were on the edge of something that could have enormous implications."

Jim Hope, a scientist at the Neuropathogenics Unit, Edinburgh, said: "We were the experts. We didn't have many of the answers ... Rather than explain that to a general public it was thought better to give the impression that we had everything under control, which we didn't and which we never have."

Details about the confidential report are revealed in the first part of the BBC2 documentary series Mad Cows and Englishmen to be broadcast on Sunday at 2005GMT.

It also reveals that a government doctor diagnosed BSE 14 months before the disease was officially announced, and that another nine months passed before important tests were done.

The official announcement of the first case of BSE was made in November 1986, but Carol Richardson, a pathologist at the Central Veterinary Laboratory, diagnosed the disease in September 1985.
 

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