And scientists have always fought for their own theories of causation and cure. But, in the past decade, another trend has emerged - the demand by the public to be protected from risk. This trend has usually assumed that professionals know the risk, know the cause, and could protect the public, but fail to do so for political or material reasons. There are many dreadful neurological diseases of unknown causation and for which there is no known cure. Many are relatively common.
Some diseases are able to capture the public imagination for the horror of their manifestations.
Since then, studies in transgenic mice have produced suggestive evidence that a link exists. But much doubt remains. BSE cannot reliably be transmitted to calves by feeding them infected feed. The only explanation for these observations is if the incubation period for the disease is very long indeed. The first real clue to this possibility is the clusters of cases that are now emerging in Queniborough and Armthorpe.