Penny Wise, Pound Foolish—A Retrospective

The News of the Week article about an independent panel's report on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), usually called mad cow disease, lays blame disproportionately on “incorrect assumption[s] by a scientific panel” for which “the best people [were not] recruited to give advice” (“Report flags hazards of risk assessment” by Helen Gavaghan, 3 Nov., p. [911][1]). As one of those BSE advisory scientists in a 1989 meeting, I know that the scientists who were recruited represented all the major laboratories engaged in transmission experiments, in addition to other respected neurovirologists. From my perspective, unwelcome scientific advice about an epidemic spread of BSE worldwide, and especially about the undeniable possibility of transmission of the BSE agent to humans, was dismissed. During that meeting, I proposed killing all cows on farms where infection had been found. Other scientists considered that removal of bovine offal from the mammalian (or at least cow) food chain would be sufficient. The reasons for not initiating a kill of “healthy” cows, and for implementing the offal ban only half-heartedly, were economic rather than scientific. Even the payment of farmers for sick (or almost sick) cows was to be half their market price. As many of us warned, this policy would encourage farmers to rapidly push suspect cows to market for full price. Commercial economic interests were also pivotal for the British government. Scientific opinion was also captured in the process. It was convenient, for example, for policy-makers to work under the assumption that the “species barrier” was impermeable. An argument based on the dominant prion theory presumed that host prion protein differences would control transmission across species. The lesson here is the risk of ignoring powerful data when they contradict a popular theory. It was repeatedly shown, since the 1960s, that both scrapie and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease agents can silently infect many distant species, with disease becoming evident if one waits long enough. Thus, there was a clear risk of cross-species BSE transmission, particularly in long-lived species such as humans. Prion theory at that time also did not acknowledge distinctive agent strains. Because such strains could change with passage, it was obvious that a more virulent agent for humans could be selected after passage in cows ([1][2]). Given this history, it is unsettling that Lord Andrew Phillips wants a “research ‘supremo’” to cull scientific advice. Another lesson was the risk of secrecy. All scientists had to promise not to reveal new BSE data discussed, including export of cows and contaminated feed worldwide and recognition that more than 1000 farms had infected cows. Nevertheless, I felt obligated as a physician to inform the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) upon my return to the United States and strongly urged my USDA contact to ban further imports of feed. The USDA acted promptly, and the United States still has had no evidence of the U.K. BSE agent in its cattle. The promise of confidentiality was, however, detrimental for public disclosures. I did not speak about these matters in scientific lectures, and I felt obliged to wait until 1994 to publish my concerns that BSE could be transmitted to people ([2][3]). This same article also warned of associated problems from contaminated medical products, an issue now being rediscovered. Because BSE transmission to humans and other species has become a public reality since 1996, open scientific discourse and policy deliberations are critical. The conclusions by the current independent panel that BSE was “unavoidable” and that it “may have emerged…from a genetic mutation that went unnoticed in a single cow” are surely open to question. Moreover, narrow public instruction in “spontaneous generation” of an “infectious protein” can delay important initiatives and preventive measures. Stopping the ongoing spread of BSE should be of common concern, theories notwithstanding. Many economically disadvantaged countries have received contaminated U.K. feed and cattle, and only informing them about the real risks and precautions and supplying necessary aid will limit the further penetration of BSE worldwide. 1. [↵][4]1. E. E. Manuelidis, 2. E. J. Gorgacz, 3. L. Manuelidis , Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 75, 3432 (1978); [OpenUrl][5][Abstract/FREE Full Text][6] 1. L. Manuelidis, 2. W. Fritch, 3. Y.-G. Xi , Science 277, 94 (1997). [OpenUrl][7][Abstract/FREE Full Text][8] 2. [↵][9]1. L. Manuelidis , Transfusion 34, 915 (1994). 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