A Government doctor diagnosed BSE 14 months before the disease was officially announced, and nine more months passed before important tests were done, a BBC series reveals.

Epidemiologist Roy Anderson

In Mad Cows And Englishmen, a four-part series to be shown on BBC2 from Sunday, a government adviser, Professor Roy Anderson, claims one in three cases could have been prevented if the government had acted 14 months earlier.

Professor Roy Anderson says earlier detection would have had a "dramatic impact!" on the number of BSE cases ('0 '11).

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.

David Bee: disease was "really spooky"

In late 1984 a vet, David Bee, was in attendance when10 cows died one after the other on a farm in Sussex.

Perplexed, he sent the body of the tenth to a local ministry laboratory, which forwarded the head to Ms Richardson.

Though a colleague agreed with her diagnosis of "bovine scrapie", the senior neuropathologist, Dr Gerald Wells, ascribed the cow's death to poisoning.

BBC Agriculture and Environment Correspondent Robert Piggott analyses what earlier action would have meant ('3 ''25).

When Dr Wells and colleagues later announced their first description of BSE symptoms and pathology in the Veterinary Record, they did not mention the earlier case.

Brain sample wasn't analysed by scrapie experts for nearly a year

With hindsight, he said, the case was the first investigated but he did not realise it until later.

By the end of 1986 there were seven confirmed cases, but experts on scrapie in Edinburgh were not consulted until August 1987.

They did not receive brain samples for testing until October 1987.

Jim Hope: knew within hours of tests what BSE was

According to Jim Hope, a scientist at the Neuropathogenisis Unit in Edinburgh, within three or four hours of receipt they were able to identify BSE as a prion disease.

It was this information that led to the government banning the use of animal protein in cattle feed in June 1988.

Cases of BSE fell sharply after the ban was introduced; if it had been introduced 14 months earlier, almost 60,000 fewer cattle might have caught the disease and less infected meat would have entered the food chain.
 

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