Issue 1981, UK Telegraph

Friday 27 October 2000

URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=003707073259657&rtmo=pIlIUQ1e&atmo=gggggg3K&pg=/et/00/10/27/nbse327.html

Sir Donald Acheson,Chief Medical Officer 1983-91, was criticised for telling the public in 1990 that beef was safe and no risk to public health.

"The development of a spongiform encephalopathy in a cat had raised a concern that BSE might be transmissible in a way that scrapie was not. Sir Donald was in no position to allay that concern. He avoided addressing it by limiting his statement to the safety of beef.

"He did not explain that he considered beef safe only because parts of the cow that might be infective were being removed from the food chain. His statement was likely to give false reassurance about the possibility that BSE might be transmissible to humans," the report said.

Sir Donald claimed that he had asked one of his officials to conduct a review of the Southwood report on BSE and to look at health risks from vaccines made from cattle serum. The official died before he could give evidence to the inquiry. The report concluded: "Our analysis of the evidence . . . has satisfied us that Sir Donald's recollection is at fault here." He should have ensured that this review was carried out by his department.

Sir Kenneth Calman,Chief Medical Officer 1991-98, was criticised for misleading the public in statements in 1993 and 1995 that beef was safe without ensuring that they fairly reflected his appraisal of the risk posed by BSE.

The report said: "By emphasising that it was safe to eat beef [this] carried the inference that transmission of the disease from cow to human was impossible . . . Dr Calman should have been careful not to make a statement in terms that suggested such a belief, for he considered that there was a real potential for BSE to move from cows to humans."

The report noted pressure from the Ministry of Agriculture to secure a reassuring statement from him. "The evidence suggests that Dr Calman had reservations about complying with Maff's request. Having decided to make a statement, he should have taken greater care to ensure that it fairly reflected his appraisal of the risk posed by BSE."

In January 1995, there was intensive press coverage of Vicky Rimmer, who had fallen ill at the age of 15 with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease . She died two years later.

Sir Kenneth issued a statement saying no one knew what the girl was suffering from and saying that, on the basis of work done, "there was no evidence whatsoever that BSE caused CJD and, similarly, not the slightest evidence that eating beef or hamburgers caused CJD". The report said the terms of this statement "were somewhat more emphatic than was desirable".

Colin Maclean, Meat and Livestock Commission 1988-1999, was criticised for issuing misleading information about the risks. This included the text of a video to be released to schools in 1990 that claimed that "it would be necessary to eat an impossible amount of brain and spinal cord in order to be at risk". In fact, scientists established that less than a gram of BSE agent could infect a cow.

John Gummer, Minister of Agriculture 1989-1993, was praised for measures he ordered to tackle BSE and to remove a "culture of secrecy" within Maff. But it pointed out that he had wrongly assumed that the discovery on May 6, 1990, that a cat had died from a brain disease similar to BSE had no connection with the cattle plague.

It also questioned his judgment 10 days later to persuade his four-year-old daughter Cordelia to eat a burger for media cameras. "We understand that Mr Gummer had been challenged by a newspaper to demonstrate his confidence in this way. He was faced with choosing between two unattractive alternatives. It may seem with hindsight that, caught in a 'no win' situation, he chose the wrong option but it is not a matter for which he ought to be criticised," the report said.

Kenneth Clarke, Health Secretary 1988-90, was blamed for failing to ensure a proper review of the implications of the Southwood report, published in February 1989. He told the Phillips inquiry that "there had been a very great deal of copious review, correspondence and discussion about the report . . . though he could not now remember the details".

Lord Phillips said: "As Secretary of State for Health, Mr Clarke . . . should have ensured that his department reviewed the report and provided an answer, if there was one. He did not."

John MacGregor, Minister of Agriculture 1987-89, was praised for implementing a ban on the use of specified high-risk cattle offals in 1989. This ban was described as a "vital element in guarding against the risk that BSE posed". But he was criticised for playing down the importance of the ban as a protection for human health.

Douglas Hogg, Minister of Agriculture 1995-97, was criticised for his failure, with others, not to prepare a contingency plan to protect the public in 1996 after learning of the rising number of young people suffering from a BSE-like disease.

He should have recognised the need for talks with the Department of Health on the action required if scientists confirmed that BSE had passed to humans. But the report also noted a range of measures and actions taken by Mr Hogg to tackle the crisis.

Stephen Dorrell, Health Secretary 1995-97, was criticised for insisting beef was safe just months before he told the Commons of the link between BSE and CJD.

The report says it was "regrettable that he gave an assurance in terms more extreme than he could justify". His department was also accused of "inertia" when serious evidence of the numbers of young people affected by vCJD emerged in 1996.

Sir Richard Southwood, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, who headed the Southwood working party on BSE, was criticised for not making clearer in his report that BSE could pose a risk to humans. If this message had been stated strongly, more urgent action may have been taken.

Robert Lowson, of Maff, was criticised together with Dr Hilary Pickles, the Department of Health's leading official on BSE in 1988-91, for not alerting the Department of Trade and Industry about the potential risks of passing BSE through cosmetics made from cattle products.

Mr Lowson, together with Keith Meldrum, the former Chief Veterinary Officer, was also criticised for failing to recognise that a voluntary ban on the use of specified high-risk offals in food was "obviously unenforceable".

Keith Meldrum, Chief Veterinary Officer 1988-97, was criticised for misleading Mr Gummer in 1990 that the case of Max the cat was insignificant. It also criticised him for underestimating the risk of cross-contamination with the BSE agent in animal feed mills and for failing to recognise that controls introduced in 1989 to prevent high-risk cattle offals finding their way into the food chain were ineffective for several years.

But the report praised Mr Meldrum as "a man of great industry and enthusiasm" who "placed himself in the firing line so far as risk of criticism was concerned". It added: "His duties were onerous. These are considerations which should temper criticism of his oversight."

The report concluded: "Mr Meldrum impressed us as a particularly dedicated and hard-working civil servant. He was concerned that the livestock industry should not be damaged by a public reaction to BSE for which there was, in his opinion, no scientific justification.

"That is not an approach for which Mr Meldrum can be criticised. On the contrary, we consider that it was a proper approach for the Chief Veterinary Officer to take . . . When Mr Meldrum had concerns about risks to humans, he acted on them."

Sir Richard Packer, Permanent Secretary of MAFF from 1993-2000, was commended for preventing Prof Sir John Pattison, chairman of the Government's Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee, becoming deeply involved in the Meat and Livestock Commission's 1995 "beef is safe" campaign.

He became concerned that the committee was being drawn into the beef debate in a way that could discredit its reputation. Sir Richard also persuaded Ministers to "read the riot act" to abattoir owners after the discovery in 1995 that many were not observing strict public health controls to keep high-risk offals out of the food chain.