United Kingdom BSE outbreak
Location | United Kingdom |
---|---|
Type | Disease outbreak |
Deaths | 178 |
Inquiries | The BSE Inquiry |
The United Kingdom was afflicted with an outbreak of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as "mad cow disease"), and its human equivalent variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD), in the 1980s and 1990s. Over four million head of cattle were slaughtered in an effort to contain the outbreak, and 178 people died after contracting vCJD through eating infected beef. A political and public health crisis resulted, and British beef was banned from export to numerous countries around the world, with some bans remaining in place until as late as 2019.[1]
The outbreak is believed to have originated in the practice of supplementing protein in cattle feed by
Background
BSE and prion diseases
British agriculture in the late twentieth century
Agriculture was the leading sector of the British economy until the mid-nineteenth century, when the repeal of the
At the time of the outbreak, cattle farming was the largest sector of British agriculture, comprising up to 38 per cent of the United Kingdom's entire agricultural product, and was capable of providing the vast majority of domestic demand for beef and dairy,
Origin and spread of BSE
British cattle are believed to have become infected in large numbers in the 1980s through the use of MBM, which contained the remains of other animals.[9] This included the remains of cattle which may have spontaneously developed the disease as well as sheep infected with scrapie, a similar disease in sheep, the inclusion of brain and spinal cord tissue in MBM increased the likelihood of infection.[10]
Timeline of outbreak
1980s: First cases of BSE in cattle
The earliest suspicions of BSE were on a farm in Sussex in December 1984,[11] and the earliest confirmed case was by a post-mortem examination of a cow from the same farm in September 1985, although it was not confirmed as such until June 1987.[12]
By November 1987, the British Ministry of Agriculture accepted it had a new disease on its hands.[13][14] In 1989, high-risk foodstuffs like offal were banned for human consumption and widespread fear about beef led many British consumers to stop purchasing it.[15]
1990–1994: Spread to other animals
A crucial basis for the government's assurances that British beef was safe was the belief that BSE-infected meat products would not be able to infect other animals. This was founded on their experience with scrapie-infected sheep, which had proven unable to cause any illness in humans.[16][17]
However, scientists studying BSE were already questioning this assumption and, on 10 May 1990, it was widely reported that a Siamese cat named Max had become infected with BSE, providing the first confirmation outside the laboratory that BSE could in fact be transmitted between species through eating infected meat.[18] Despite this, the government maintained that British beef was safe and, later that month, the then-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, John Gummer, appeared on television encouraging his daughter to eat a beef burger, and declared British beef to be 'completely safe'.[19] Many more cats would go on to develop the disease, as would numerous other animals including at least one tiger in a UK zoo.[20]
Cases of the disease in cattle continued to rise despite bans on feeding offal to cows, and peaked with 100,000 confirmed cases in 1992–1993. In an attempt to stop the spread of the disease, a total of 4.4 million cattle were slaughtered during the outbreak.[15]
1994–1996: Spread to humans
In late 1994, a number of people began to show symptoms of a neurological disease similar to CJD, a fatal disorder that occurs naturally in a small percentage of people, though usually only later in life. This new form of the disease would go on to be identified as variant CJD (vCJD), occurring primarily in younger people and caused through eating BSE-infected meat.
178 people (the latest in 2016) would go on to contract and die of the disease.[27]
Regulations and bans of British beef
When BSE was identified, the United States banned the importation of British cattle in 1989, and 499 cows who had been recently imported from the United Kingdom were killed. The United States slaughtered an additional 116 British cows in 1996.[28]
Between December 1997 and November 1999, the British government banned the sale of beef on the bone.[29]
A week after Dorrell's announcement, on 27 March 1996, the European Union (EU) imposed a worldwide ban on exports of British beef.[29] The ban lasted for 10 years being lifted on 1 May 2006, although restrictions remained on British beef containing vertebral material and beef sold on the bone.[30] The ban lead to trade disputes between the UK and other EU states, dubbed a "Beef War" by media.[31] France continued to impose a ban on British beef illegally long after the European Court of Justice had ordered it to lift its blockade, although it has never paid any fine for doing so.[32]
The BSE inquiry
During the height of the crisis, as well as after cases began to decline, the UK government came under criticism for its response, and in particular for how slow it was to acknowledge the problem, to inform the public and to take steps to deal with the outbreak.[33]
On 22 December 1997, an inquiry was announced in parliament to investigate the history of the outbreak and the actions taken in response. The inquiry was conducted by a committee consisting of
Future risk
The original outbreak of vCJD only affected people with a particular genetic makeup; those who were methionine-homozygous at the
In 2016, the first case of vCJD with heterozygosity at codon 129 was identified. [37]
See also
References
- ^ "Japan to scrap UK beef ban imposed after BSE crisis". BBC News. 10 January 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
- PMID 29887132.
- ^ "Bovine spongiform encephalopathy". WHO. November 2002. Archived from the original on 2012-12-18. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 1 §120
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 1 §119
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 1 §121
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 1 §122
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 1 §123
- PMID 9169904.
- ^ "BSE in North America BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) Prion Diseases". CDC. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 3 §1.9
- ^ Inquiry Report, Vol. 3 §1.7
- ^ Pain, Stephanie (5 November 1987). "Brain disease drives cows wild". NewScientist. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
- ^ "Mad Cow Disease Fast Facts". CNN. 2 July 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- ^ a b "'Mad cow disease': What is BSE?". BBC. 18 October 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- PMID 10427633.
- ^ Sample, Ian (10 January 2007). "Should we still be worried?". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
- ^ Ainsworth, Claire; Carrington, Damian (25 October 2000). "BSE disaster: the history". New Scientist.
- Huffington Post. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- PMID 9716952.
- PMID 21203419.
- ^ Meikle, James (27 October 2000). "Sad and painful decline of a daughter". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- ^ Arthur, Charles (19 March 1997). "Agonising decline that led to first diagnosis of new illness". The Independent. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
- ^ Wells, Chloe (Jan 16, 2022). "The 'Mad Cow Disease' Scandal". Medium. Retrieved Jun 16, 2023.
- ^ Beck, Matthias; Kewell, Beth; Asenova, Darinka (2007). "BSE crisis and food safety regulation: a comparison of the UK and Germany" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 February 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- ^ "Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK (By Calendar Year)" (PDF). National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit. January 8, 2024. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
- ^ Sheen, p. 65
- ^ a b "BSE crisis: timeline". The Guardian. 26 October 2000. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- ^ "End to 10-year British beef ban". BBC News. 3 May 2006.
- ^ "EU beef war escalates". CNNfn. 22 October 1999. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
- ^ Sparks, Ian (6 November 2008). "Yes, we had mad cow disease too, France confesses". Evening Standard. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
- ^ a b Ahmed, Kamal; Barnett, Anthony; Millar, Stuart (29 October 2000). "Madness". The Observer. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- PMID 11332300.
- ^ a b MacKenzie, Debora (18 January 2017). "Many more people could still die from mad cow disease in the UK". New Scientist. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ Toolis, Kevin (22 September 2001). "Epidemic in waiting". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- New England Journal of Medicine.
Works cited
- Phillips, Nick; Bridgeman, June; Ferguson-Smith, Malcolm (October 2000). The BSE Inquiry (Report). Archived from the original on 2 August 2006. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
- Sheen, Barbara (2005). Mad cow disease. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books. ISBN 9781590186350– via Archive.org.