Hindsight blinkers Britain's mad cow disease response.

Abstract

The BSE Inquiry was set up in 1997 following the British government's admission that the so-called mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encepalopathy (BSE), might be transmissible from cows to humans. The remit was to look at events prior to this admission and find out what had happened and what lessons there were for the future. Chaired by a senior judge, Lord Phillips, the Inquiry took two and a half years to complete with 138 days of public evidence from 378 witnesses and cost £27 million. The report provides 167 recommendations and was published this fall.During the crisis there have been 180,000 confirmed cases of BSE in British cattle although up to 1 million may have been infected. While the incidence has fallen dramatically from its peak of around 3,500 per month in 1993, there remains uncertainty about the human consequences. More than 80 British people have died from a disease diagnosed as variant Creutzfeldt–Jacob disease (vCJD) linked to BSE, but the final tally is uncertain and estimates vary enormously. Although BSE has been mostly a British problem until now, cases are appearing in several other countries.