BBC News Online: UK

One in three BSE cases "could have been prevented"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Relevant Stories

Call for answers in BSE crisis (27 Jan 98 | UK)
High profile judge to head BSE probe (23 Dec 97 | UK)
BSE - The story so far (05 Dec 97 | Special Report)

Internet Links

Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food - BSE information
The UK CJD Surveillance Unit
Mad Cow Disease Home Page
New Scientist's background to the BSE crisis

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Summaries

In this section

New Belfast killing
Teenage bullies convicted
Ice-cream war killings - appeals dismissed
The Verve and All Saints walk off with the Brits
Yates found guilty of ear-biting (From Sport)
IRA linked to Belfast shooting
Dinner ladies get just desserts
Colliery to close with loss of 330 jobs
MPs may overturn ban on beef on the bone
Employers get wake-up call from working women
Belt up call for school trips
Dusty Springfield 'very ill with cancer'
Stars jostled at Brits
Profile: The Verve claim their place in pop history
Lords back ban on 'predatory' newspaper pricing
Nuns facing abuse claims
Labour will overhaul welfare state - Harman
Former student jailed for Christmas Day murder
Air crash hero wins damages

UK Contents

• Politics