The Inside Story of BSE

[Guest guest]

press-release

The Inside Story of BSE

Tue, 7 Nov 2006 21:25:33 +0000 (GMT)

 

 

 

 

 

The Institute of Science in Society Science Society

Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk

 

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

 

 

========================================================

 

The Inside Story of BSE

************************

 

Prof. Peter Saunders reviews

 

The Politics of BSE , Richard Packer, Palgrave Macmillan,

Basingstoke, 2006. ISBN 1-4039-8529-4

 

BSE transmission to humans admitted after 10 years

 

It's twenty years since reports first appeared of cattle in

the UK coming down with a disease now known as BSE (Bovine

Spongiform Encephalitis). The number of animals affected

rapidly increased, and because the disease was both fatal to

cattle and also similar to at least two diseases that are

fatal to humans, Creutzfeld Jacob Disease (CJD) and kuru,

people began to worry about the danger to human health. For

ten years, the government kept reassuring the public that

there was no risk involved in eating beef. Many of us can

still remember how the Secretary of State for Agriculture

John Gummer was shown on television feeding a beefburger to

his daughter to demonstrate how confident he was that it was

safe.

 

Then, on 20 March 1996, the Secretary of State for Health

Stephen Dorell announced that contrary to what he and his

fellow ministers had been telling us for the past ten years,

BSE can be transmitted to humans and in humans, it leads to

an inevitably fatal disease known as variant CJD (vCJD).

 

That was a bit of a bombshell, with an immediate and lasting

effect on public opinion. It probably did more than any

other single event to shake the public's confidence in

government pronouncements about science, and is one of the

major reasons that the British public has steadfastly

refused to accept GM food, despite constant insistence by

government agencies that the products are " perfectly safe " .

 

Inside MAFF

-----------

 

The Politics of BSE is a story told by someone who was a

senior civil servant in the then Ministry of Agriculture,

Fisheries and Food (MAFF) throughout the period leading up

to the BSE crisis and its aftermath, and was its Permanent

Secretary from 1993 to 2000. Richard Packer describes the

events as seen from the inside, combining the care and

attention to detail of a Whitehall report with flashes of

irony and invective. It's not an unbiased account, given the

circumstances you could hardly expect one, but there is a

lot to be learned from what Packer writes.

 

Read the rest of this article here

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/the-inside-story-of-BSE.php

 

 

Or read other articles in the Energy section of the

Institute of Science in Society Website

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scienergy.php

 

 

========================================================

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

 

If you like this original article from the Institute of

Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving

articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation

or purchase on our website

 

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/donations.

 

ISIS is an independent, not-for-profit organisation

dedicated to providing critical public information on

cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability

and ecological sustainability in science.

 

 

========================================================

CONTACT DETAILS

 

The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 51885, London

NW2 9DH

 

telephone: [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20 7272 5636]

 

Foe email details, see http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php

 

MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM

WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION. FOR PERMISSION, PLEASE

CONTACT ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact2.php