The Government's Lies about Bse Experiments on Animals.

In the early 1970s hans reusch made the startling discovery that Animal experiments did not help to enhance or protect ooman health but caused a huge amount of illnesses andfatalities. How does this hypothesis stand up as regards the bse debacle? Have Animal experiments helped to prevent the bse epidemic or did they help the tory government to spread the disease through ever greater number of the ooman population? This article is a considerably enlarged version of a section in Terra Firm 10 'Bse: The Offal Truth'.

"Scientists at Glaxo laboratories have found a way of tackling the influenza virus. It has not yet been tested on humans, but it has worked on mice and ferrets." [1]

"Francis bacon, a 17th century lord chancellor, provided the industrialists with a scientific alibi for their ruthless behaviour. Jailed for taking bribes, he eventually died of pneumonia while experimenting with frozen Chicken." [2]

Right up to the announcement of the first bse-cjd victims, the tory government consistently, and strenuously, insisted that Animal experiments had shown that bse did not pose a threat to ooman health. It continually pointed to the Animal experiments favourable to its case - ignoring all those which were unfavourable. [3]

I: Government Claims Mice not Affected by Bse.

When bse was first spotted in the mid-1980s the government claimed the disease had nothing to do with scrapie - it didn't want the public to associate bse with something as frightening as the brain degenerative disease in Sheep. Gradually, however, the government realized there were considerable political benefits from arguing that bse was scrapie in Cattle, "At first, the use of the terms 'scrapie' and 'bse' in the same sentence was not encouraged. Once the authorities realized that scrapie had never apparently spread to oomans, the idea that bse might be a form of scrapie suddenly became encouraged." [4]

The government justified its new stance when an epidemiological study carried out by the ministry of agriculture, food and fisheries (hereinafter referred to as the maffia) suggested the source of bse was scrapie infected feed. The new stance was reinforced when the first Animal experiment showed that Mice did not get the disease after consuming bse-infected material. This reversal in government propaganda was then given scientific respectability by the southwood committee. The government's pet scientists argued that Cattle were a dead-end host for bse i.e. bse would not spread to other species let alone to oomans.

II: Government Discovers Mice are Affected by Bse.

Soon after the government's ideological reversal some highly educated pervert in a white coat discovered that Mice could get bse if infected material was injected directly into the Animal's brain - the nazi-like euphemism for this clinical procedure is inoculation. Whilst the experiment did not contradict the government's thesis that bse is scrapie in Cattle (because Mice are also infected by scrapie) it did contradict the assertion that bse couldn't spread to other species. However, the government didn't regard this result as having any serious implication for ooman health - after all, it was only an experiment on Mice - even though thereafter the government invoked Mice experiments to justify its speculation that bse would not be a threat to oomans.

III: Mice first to be Affected by Bse.

In february 1990 the government announced that the maffia had induced bse orally in Mice. Although this was a much more serious breech in the government's 'bse-is-safe-for oomans' propaganda, the government persisted with its thesis that Cattle were a dead end host for the disease, "This report describes the transfer of bse to Cattle by injection and to Mice by feeding. So did this mean that Cattle were not a 'dead-end host'? It should have, but it didn't." [5]

The discovery that Mice could acquire the disease both through cerebral injections and orally was a disaster for these Creatures because they were now doomed to become the most commonly tortured Animal in bse experiments. [6] The government's policies over the next six years were basically dictated by what Mice told them. Such is the nature of progress in a so-called modern, knowledge-based, high tech, scientific society. [7]

IV: The Problems caused by the Government's Reliance on Mice.

There are two main problems entailed by using Mice in bse experiments.

* Firstly, it is difficult to inject enough bse-infected material into Mice brains to ensure they contract the disease. Stephen dealler, a microbiologist, points out that it is possible to inject only 3mg of a diseased sample. [8]

* Secondly, it is difficult transferring bse to other species because of what is called the species barrier i.e. the obstacles which prevent other species from contracting the disease. It is difficult injecting enough of the disease agent to overcome these obstacles. One of the remarkable facts about bse is that it is far easier to transfer the disease from one Bovine to another than it is to transfer it to Mice, "It takes 1,000 times more bse to kill a Mouse than a Cow." [9]

These limitations have two main consequences. Firstly, if a bse sample in a Mice experiment contains only a low concentration of the disease, it does not trigger off the disease in the Mice. Superficially this makes it seem as if there is no bse in the sample but what it actually means is that the species barrier in Mice protects them from the disease. In other words, Mice are not sensitive enough to detect low concentrations of bse. Secondly, whilst Mice could not contract the disease from a sample containing a low dose of bse, oomans could still eat enough of the sample to contract the disease. Dealler points out .. "in a single meal a human could easily be eating just less than 30,000 i.u. (infective units) from a Cow tissue when that tissue did not infect Mice even by intra-cerebral inoculation. In other words the Mouse inoculation test could never, even by showing negative results, indicate that humans were not at risk." [10] Dealler suggests the house of commons' agricultural committee were .. "taken in by the lack of transmission of scrapie from Sheep muscle to another kind of Animal. They did not seem to see that when scrapie was inoculated into a Mouse only a minute quantity was involved. They also did not seem to grasp that oomans eat relatively large quantities of food - large enough to get past such an inefficient route of transmission." [11] The government added to the senselessness of its stance on bse because it did not ascertain how much bse was needed to infect Mice .. "they (the maffia) did not yet know how many i.u. (infectivity units) were needed to infect a Mouse .. " [12]

It might have been thought that Mice's insensitivity to bse would be a considerable liability in experiments to test the infectivity of Cattle tissues. Quite the reverse. The government preferred the use of Mice precisely because of this insensitivity. As a result of Mice experiments, the government could declare that many types of Cattle tissue were bse-free even though they were likely to be infected by low concentrations of bse which could be fatal to oomans if enough of it was eaten. Mice tests provided the government with just what it wanted - a scientific justification for allowing the beef industry to continue selling its bse-infected beef and beef products. For the government there was no better guarantee of getting the result it wanted i.e. proof that bse posed no threat to ooman health, than by carrying out so-called scientific experiments on Animals semi-immune to the disease, "Unfortunately, the government's experiments cannot detect low levels of infectivity. In 1988 government scientists tried to find out which parts of a Cow were infectious. The only way to do that was to take samples from each tissue and organ of the infectious carcass, liquidize them and inject them into Mice. The Mice injected with brain and spinal cord succumbed to bse very quickly so it was clear these were the most heavily infected parts of the carcass. They were banned. But Mice injected with muscle, blood, liver and kidney did not get bse at all and these meats were considered safe for ooman consumption." [13]

In effect Mice experiments have helped to contribute to the bse-cjd disaster by suggesting that brutish beef is safe to eat when it isn't, "We may have been eating minute doses of bse in some meat that wasn't detected in the Mouse tests." [14] The use of Mice experiments to give a clean bill of health to a range of bse-infected Cattle products has been the foundation-stone of the tory government's propaganda right up to the announcement of the first bse-cjd victims. [15]

V: Mice Experiments Give a Clean Bill of Health to Bse Infected Material.

V.A: Mice Experiments show there is no Bse in Liver and Bone Marrow.

Mice experiments have enabled the government to encourage people to eat bse-infected liver and bone marrow, "The ministry of agriculture has conducted its own experiments, injecting liver and bone marrow from infected Cows, into Mice and only the brain and spinal cord have caused infection." [16] The reason for the negative result is that samples of liver and bone marrow contain only a low dose of bse - not that they are bse free. Since bse accumulates in the body consumers may eat a succession of meals containing low-concentrations of bse which stay in the body until there is enough to overcome oomans' species barrier and infect them with the disease.

V.B: Mice Experiments show that Only the Brain is Infected with Bse.

A short while after this experiment the government was happily proclaiming that the latest Mice experiments had shown that only Cattle brains were infected by bse, "According to maff, new evidence now showed that only the brain of an infected Animal carried any infectivity." [17] The government didn't seem in the least bit bothered about the inconsistencies of its various Mice experiments - it was much too intent on using a favourable result to edge public opinion toward abolishing the regulation requiring the removal of spinal cords from Cattle carcasses in abattoirs.

V.C: Mice Experiments show there is no Bse in Bovine Muscle.

Mice experiments also allowed the government to encourage consumers to eat bse-infected beef. The government restated its position in october 1993 when it once again deliberately misinterpreted a new set of Mice experiments to suggest that bse was not present in bovine muscle, "Kevin taylor, the government's assistant chief veterinarian said meat from bse infected Cows had been injected into the brains of Mice but the tests completed last month showed no signs that Mice had caught the disease, "We therefore remain confident that beef is perfectly safe to eat." he said." [18]

V.D: Mice Experiments show there is no Bse in Milk.

The government also used Mice experiments to encourage consumers to drink milk infected with bse, "A ministry (of agriculture) spokesman said. "We are happy that milk is safe, the spongiform encepalopathy advisory committee (seac) is happy, and the chief medical officer is happy," he said. The ministry bases its confidence on research carried out by scientists from the institutes for Animal health in edinburgh and newbury, berkshire, and the central veterinary laboratory in weybridge, surrey. The results were published in the 'veterinary record' in june 1995. The team fed milk from Cows with bse to Mice for 40 days, then observed the Mice for a further two years. They also injected milk from a bse-infected Cow into the brains and skin of Mice, a route that is far more likely to cause infection. These Mice, too, were observed for up to two years." [19]

Such experiments did not win every scientist's approval, "Microbiologist stephen dealler, who first warned of the possibility of bse being passed to oomans, was quoted as calling the experiments "appalling."; "I would certainly expect there to be some degree of infectivity in milk, although it would be a very small amount," he told the observer." [20]

V.E: Mice Experiments show there is no Bse in Blood.

Perhaps most critically of all, the government used Mice experiments to insist there is no bse in blood and that it is perfectly safe for consumers to go on eating blood products (including meat) - rather than making the more accurate statement that it had not yet been able to detect the low level of bse in Cattle blood.

V.F: Mice Experiments show there is no Maternal Transmission in Cattle.

The government relied on Mice experiments to argue that bse, a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, is not transmissible. It had performed a range of bogus experiments on Mice to show that bse could not be passed on through a number of maternal sources. These experiments became a complete embarrassment when, in june 1996, evidence of maternal transmission of bse in Cattle became overwhelming. The government was then forced to abandon the conclusion derived from its Mice experiments, "Cows with bse can pass the disease to their Calves, government scientists admitted last week. But they are at a loss to explain how this happens when tests have shown that none of the tissues a Calf comes into contact with is infectious. "Uterus, sperm, mammary gland, milk and placenta have all been shown to be negative for infectivity," says virologist jeff almond. "But they can't all be - otherwise you wouldn't have transmission." Tissues are tested for infectivity by injecting extracts into Mice and waiting to see if they develop bse." [21]

Despite the disasterous failure of Mice experiments to reveal the existence of the maternal transmission of bse, this didn't stop the government from continuing to rely on further Mice experiments - which just goes to show of course that these experiments were not designed to discover the truth but to hide it. And why should the government give up its addiction to Mice? Mice experiments had given the government six years of peace and quiet on the bse political battlefront in which it could strenuously, and racuously, denounce on the flimsiest of evidence all those who believed bse could be passed on through maternal transmission. Even more importantly, these experiments meant that when the government announced the first 10 victims of bse-cjd it could justify a continuation of its offal ban rather than having to extend the ban to the consumption of beef. It really is quite amazing that the bellowing ranks of stroppy, belligerent, macho tory mps in the house of commons could ferociously promote a point of view which was basically dependent upon a cute little furry Animal with a penchant for small lumps of cheese. The only similarity between these delightful creatures and tory mps is that they both have the habit of constantly urinating on everything they come across. The livelihoods of a huge number of tory mps and tory ministers were ultimately so dependent upon Mice it is surprising that the tory party doesn't use a drawing of a Mouse on their party banners.

V.G: Don't worry - More Mice Experiments on the Way.

The maffia decided that further Animal experiments should be carried out to discover the route of maternal transmission. Somewhat strangely, however, it decided these tests should be carried out on ...... yes, this not too difficult is it? .. Mice, "A long term study .. will check the infectivity of 47 different tissues .. The study will take a year to complete, and again the tests are carried out in Mice." [22] The best the government can hope for is that the experiments will be inconclusive so that yet more tests have to be carried out thereby avoiding the need to take any action to ban beef. [23]

V.H: Mice Experiments show there is no Bse in Sheep Muscle.

The government also allowed consumers to eat bse-infected Sheep because Mice experiments were not sensitive enough to measure the disease in samples taken from various Sheep organs. Whilst the government has banned a number of Cattle tissues it has not banned the equivalent Sheep organs. Dealler also criticises these experiments. [24]

VI: Transgenic Mice Experiments Prove Bse is not a threat to Oomans.

Towards the end of 1995 a number of bse experiments were carried out on transgenic Mice, "The first major research in this area was reported in december 1995. Collinge and his colleagues at imperial college school of medicine at st mary's studied Mice genetically-engineered so that they produced ooman prion protein as well as normal Mouse prion protein. They intracerebrally inoculated the Mice with cjd, and the Mice fell victim to the disease, demonstrating that the ooman disease cjd was transmitted to them. They then exposed similar Mice to bse (brain homogenate from confirmed bse-infected Cows). Abnormal Mouse prion protein was formed, but no abnormal human prion protein." [25]

The daily express trumpeted the news that scientific experiments had shown that bse is no threat to oomans, "Scientists claimed a major breakthrough yesterday in demonstrating mad Cow disease cannot be passed on to humans through eating infected beef. Researchers who carried out tests on Mice believe they have proved that the chances of bse jumping the species barrier from Cattle to oomans to cause creutzfeldt-jakob disease are extremely remote." [26] This was a mere three months before the government's announcement of the 10 bse-cjd victims. In other words, Mice experiments were still being used to prove that oomans were not at risk from bse even after a couple of oomans had already died from the disease.

VII: Transgenic Mice Experiments Continue to Prove Bse is not a threat to Oomans.

The failure of the Mice experiments showing that 'bse is safe for oomans' was followed by the farce of the Mice experiments showing there is no maternal transmission of bse; which in turn was followed by an erroneous set of tortures inflicted on transgenic Mice. After all these failures it might have been thought the government's Mice experiment hoaxes were wearing a bit thin. But, even whilst the tally of bse-cjd fatalities was growing during 1996 transgenic Mice experiments were still being used to show that bse posed no threat to oomans. Collinge's .. "experiments were then repeated with genetically-modified Mice that express only ooman protein and no Mouse protein. It was reported in the paper that these remained well at 264 days after inoculation (60 days longer than for cjd to develop in Mice of this genotype). Reports on their progress have appeared from time to time, the most recent being after they had successfully passed the 500 day mark in early September 1996." [27] It would seem that scientifically speaking genetically-modified Mice are just as unreliable as transgenic Mice which are just as unreliable as their natural counterparts. Politically speaking, however, Mice packed an enormous punch in the defence of livestock tories' profits.

The creation of transgenic Mice has huge political advantages over normal Mice in so called scientific experiments - it opens up the possibility of continually being able to rely on Mice on experiments no matter how irrelevant they are to the discovery of the truth. Whenever a transgenic Mice experiment produces a result which is later shown to be incorrect, scientists could simply turn around, apologize for the isolated error, and then suggest a genetic modification of the Mice needs to be made which would allow scientists to continue experimenting on them - rather than having to go through the laborious effort of actually trying to find the truth. Even better, it would enable scientists to create a Mouse which gives scientists the results they have been paid to discover. What government scientists would like to create is a designer Mice which could be tortured into propping up any conceivable government lie. Doubtlessly one day multinational corporation's livestock scientists might concoct a multi-transgenic mutant (e.g. part Elephant, part Millipede, part Ostrich, part ooman) which always gives them the results their bosses desire. The blood scientists will then breathe a sigh of relief that they have been shown to be right all along - Animal experiments can help to protect the beef industry - but by this time the fatalities could be too great to be covered up by such scientific witchcraft. The only thing that Mice experiments have been good for in the bse crisis is keeping alive the diseased beef industry.

VIII: Animal Experiments show Bse is not a Threat to Oomans.

Mice were not the only victims in the experiments carried out to determine bse's threat to tory profits .. sorry, ooman health. A number of so-called scientists experimented on Animals closer to oomans in evolutionary terms on the assumption that the closer the proximity to oomans the more accurate the results of the experiments in determining their likely effect on oomans, "In 1992, researchers led by rosalind ridley, now at the university of cambridge, found that Marmosets injected with material from the brains of Cows with bse developed a prion disease." [28]

One group of scientists were probably highly pleased to report that their experiments indicated bse was little threat to oomans since this could well earn them an invitation to a caribbean medical conference partly funded through various public health trusts run by the beef industry, "We estimate that more than 100 Marmosets born in our colony between 1980 and 1990 lived for more than 5 years and were exposed to ruminant-derived protein in their diet for their entire life. Each adult Marmoset (weight 350 g) was fed about 2 g meat meal per day. It seems likely, therefore, that the mature Monkeys in our colony were exposed to significant amounts of infective agent for more than 5 years and in some cases for up to 10 years. With the exception of those Animals which were injected intracerebrally with infected brain in our primary transmission studies, no Animal in our colony has ever developed spongiform encephalopathy. Our observation serves as a reminder that the oral route is probably an inefficient mode of infection for spongiform encephalopathy across the species barrier." [29] ; "A few Animals of several species of Antelope and Cat but not Monkeys became affected despite these Monkeys being fed for many years on pellets which contained up to four times the amount of the implicated, rendered meat and bone meal that was included in Cattle pellets. Thus a "species barrier" of some sort exists between Cattle and Primates." [30]

It is a matter of common sense to suspect that the closer the evolutionary proximity between oomans and other species the more accurately will the result of an experiment on that species reflect on oomans. But, common sense is often just fantasy. There is no correlation between the evolutionary proximity of two species and the ease of transmission of a tse between them. What counts in the transmission of tses from one species to another is not their evolutionary proximity but whether they have a genetic similarity at a particular point along the amino acid sequence of a particular brain protein. This explains why the tse in Hamsters doesn't infect Mice and, conversely, why bse infects oomans despite a significant genetic difference between Cattle and oomans. [31] Thus, even experiments on Animals in close evolutionarily proximity to oomans cannot say anything conclusive about oomans. [32]

IX: Animal Experiments do not show Bse is the Same as Scrapie.

It was pointed out above that the maffia and the government promoted the idea that bse is scrapie in Cattle in order to argue that, just like scrapie, bse poses no threat to ooman health. When the maffia discovered Animal experiments showing that bse was not similar to scrapie it simply ignored them. [33] Throughout the 1990s the government maintained the fraud that bse was like scrapie by adopting the scientific methodology that unless Animal experiments confirmed its prejudices then they must be unreliable. The government persisted with this approach until the discovery of the bse-cjd fatalities made such nonsense unsustainable. There are a number of facts indicating that bse is different from scrapie which suggests that bse could not be deemed to be as harmless to ooman health as scrapie.

IX.A: Bse Has a Different Host Range than Scrapie.

Soon after the government started promoting the idea that bse was scrapie in Cattle it was discovered that bse affects a different range of Animals than scrapie. It infects Animals not infected by scrapie and, conversely, does not infect some Animals which contract scrapie. Unfortunately these facts did not have the slightest impact on tory propaganda.

IX.B: Bse Has a Wider Host Range than Scrapie.

Bse infects a wider range of Animals than scrapie, "The following year, (1992) bse was transmitted experimentally to seven out of eight species of mammal, including Pigs and Marmoset Monkeys. In four experiments, this was by eating. A Puma and a Cheetah were also reported to have died of the disease. Evidence was mounting of an uncontrollable epidemic, with serious implications for oomans." [34]

This is not a vindication of Animal experiments. These experiments did not need to be done because it was already known that bse had accidentally infected an extensive number of species e.g. domestic Cats, wild Cats, Deer, Ostriches, etc. The only point in carrying out these experiments when the answer was already known was to enable the maffia to try and find species which did not succumb to bse so that the government had a propaganda weapon to counter claims that bse posed a threat to ooman health. Since the government had already lost the war it had to try and find a battle to win in order to maintain some minimal level of credibility.

IX.C: Bse is More infectious than Scrapie.

The government ignored yet another piece of evidence that bse is not the same as scrapie, "In 1992 came new evidence casting further doubt on official reassurances. Laboratory tests on Mice suggested that bse was very different from scrapie. The experiments showed that bse could infect Mice much more quickly than scrapie did." [35] The fact that bse infects a wider range of Animals than scrapie also suggests that it may be more infectious than scrapie.

IX.D: The Wider Implications of the Bse-Scrapie Analogy.

The government promoted the belief that bse is scrapie in Cattle because this implied bse would not be a threat to ooman health. However, there were two other implications of this analogy which did not put bse in such a rosy light. The government dealt with these aspects of the analogy in the same way that it dealt with most problems - it ignored them. The government accepted the bse is scrapie analogy whilst totally ignoring the implications of this analogy. Despite the fact that the implications undermined the usefulness of the analogy the government continually flogged the anology because it had nothing else to fall back on in order to placate public anxieities about bse.

Firstly, since scrapie can be maternally transmitted this suggests there is also likely to be maternal transmission of bse.

Secondly, since scrapie exists in Sheep blood then, according to the bse-scrapie analogy, it is likely that bse would also be found in Cattle blood.

The government was rescued from the bad publicity of these two implications only by evidence generated by Animal experiments.

X: Animal Experiments Failing to show Beef is Safe.

The tory government argued that Animal experiments showed that bse-infected meat is safe for ooman consumption. However, it was far from zealous in adhering to the results obtained from Animal experiments. It pushed into oblivion all those experiments which contradicted its propaganda. This section points out the experiments which the government ignored. [36]

X.A: Experiments on Pigs.

In 1990 the maffia discovered that Pigs could contract bse if the disease was injected directly into its brain. Given the government's support for Animal experiments, this experiment should have caused some consternation about its understanding of bse: firstly, that bse was not transmissible and, secondly, that bse was not a threat to ooman health. However, the government didn't have the slightest hesitation in dismissing these doubts, "The brutish veterinary association stated the experiments had no implications for the Pig industry, food safety, and public health." [37] If Pigs hadn't contracted the disease the government would have insisted this was conclusive proof that bse is no threat to oomans.

X.B: Experiments on Monkeys.

The government repeated this propaganda technique many years later when it was discovered that Monkeys could be infected with bse. Two french neurologists artifically induced bse in Monkeys and showed they suffered brain damage "strikingly similar" to cjd in oomans. The department of health dismissed the report as, "an interesting contribution to scientific debate but no proof of anything." [38] But, then again, given that this experiment was so unnecessary perhaps the department of health was right in spite of itself.

X.C: Experiments on Sheep.

The government dismissed the hypothesis that Sheep could get bse and set up an experiment to confirm its prejudices. It was eventually discovered that Sheep could get the disease but it was six years before the government publically accepted this conclusion. It gave way over this conclusion only because it moved the goalpoasts and denied the experiment had any implication for oomans - which makes it clear the government were quite prepared to listen to what Mice had to tell them but not Sheep - presumably Sheep were far too intelligent for their own good. Indeed, in many ways, Sheep are far more intelligent than the overcivilized barbarians in the tory cabinet for whom reason was just a tool to increase profits . [39]

This experiment on Sheep was completely unnecessary. The government could easily have discovered the answer by carrying out post mortems on the brains of the Sheep slaughtered at abattoirs. This would have cost next to nothing to carry out and would have provided a result almost immediately. The maffia scientists, however, didn't dare to carry out this type of investigation because if it was discovered that Sheep were infected by bse this would have meant imposing a ban on Sheep consumption. The government would much rather allow the public to consume diseased meat than do anything to harm the Sheep industry. It was bad enough that the beef industry had to be undermined by stupid consumers suffering from brain rotting diseases; it wasn't going to allow these dead-beats to disrupt another tory profit earner. The six year long experiment was designed not to discover the truth but to delay the emergence of the truth for as long as possible.

X.D: Experiments on Cattle.

The government carried out a long term experiment on Cattle to determine whether bse could be maternally transmitted. One of the government's main policies for combatting bse - the specified offals ban (sob) - was based on the assumption that there was no maternal transmission of bse. If the disease was spread through maternal transmission then the government's sob policy would become redundant. When it was confirmed in the summer of 1996 that there was maternal transmission the government simply ignored the result and continued sobbing!

The experiment showed there was maternal transmission, "During 1988 and 1989, 316 Calves from bse mothers were very carefully reared under conditions to protect them from any possible exposure to contaminated feed. The purpose of this was to identify vertical transmission, were it to take place, since the only explanation for any bse in the offspring would be acquisition of the infection from the mother. A similar number of Calves from apparently healthy dams was also studied. They were the control group, and the experiment was said to have been performed blind so that until the code was broken it would not be known to which group any Animal would belong." [40] The government, of course, played down the result of this experiment and ingeniously reduced the rate of maternal transmission from 15% to a rather fictious 1% - which was its rationale for refusing to countenance an extension of its sob policy.

This was yet another unnecessary experiment. Stephen dealler had carried out an epidemiological study in 1994 which showed that bse was being maternally transmitted. The sole purpose of the maternal transmission experiment was to delay the time when the government would have to admit that Cows pass their disease on to their offspring. If the government had discovered the maternal transmission of bse in Cattle before it announced the first bse-cjd victims then it would not have been able to maintain the lie that bse could be found only in specified offals. If the result of this experiment had been known at the begining of the 1996 rather than somewhat fortuitously six months later, then the government would have had to extend sob to include a ban on the consumption of beef. The fact is, however, the government knew the preliminary results of the experiment clearly indicated maternal transmission was happening but delayed the termination of the experiment as long as it could to avoid having to take action to combat bse, "By march 1991, not a single Animal had succumbed from bse. But by march 1993, the new scientist had reported that two of these Animals had gone down with bse. Meanwhile despite numerous requests in parliament to provide details, none were forthcoming. Dramatically the sunday times reported on march 13th 1994 .. (that 19 have contracted bse)." [41]

XI: For Maffia scientists it is but one short Extrapolation from Mice to Men.

One of the most ludicrous Animal experiments which the tory party used to prop up its beef industry was that since Mice contract bse only when given a high concentration of bse-infected material, this proves that oomans are safe because, by extrapolating from the body weight of a Mice to that of oomans, oomans could never consume the vast quantities of bse needed to get the disease. This simplistic argument overlooks the tens of thousands of Cows keeling over from bse around the country. Extrapolating from the body weight of a Mouse to that of a Cow implies that Cows should also be safe - safer in fact than oomans. The tories who put forward this argument didn't seem able to understand that despite their huge difference in size, Cows need far less bse to contract the disease than Mice. [42]

XII: Conclusions.

XII.A: The Government's General Position on Animal Experiments.

The government asserts that Animal experiments are a valid means of assessing the effect of a new substance on ooman health. If a new substance - whether a drug/chemical/cosmetic/disease agent etc. - is tested on Animals and shown to have no adverse effect then it is assumed to be safe for oomans. However, the government does not regard Animal experiments as an infallible guide to the safety of new substances. Far from it. If the results of an Animal experiment do not suit the government's interests (or the interests of its multi-national corporation paymasters) the experiments are dismissed. [43] The government's general attitude towards Animal experiments is economic; Animal experiments are useful for providing a pseudo-scientific justification for the marketing of new products. Defenceless Animals are forced to endure excrutiating torture simply to boost the profits of multi-national corporations rather than discovering the Truth or protecting ooman health. This is why it has been possible for centuries to reach such conclusions as the following, "The imperial cancer research campaign has recently stated that there is no strong evidence to link industrial chemicals and insecticides, such as ddt and pcbs, to breast cancer. Animal experiments, of course, played a role in their findings." [44]

The tory government's attitude to Animal experiments was all too evident during the bse epidemic. It used Animal experiments to protect the beef industry not ooman health. It used Animal experiments to suggest that bse is not a threat to ooman health and that a wide variety of bse-infected Cattle organs can be safely consumed by oomans. It used Animal experiments to delay the discovery of the truth about the bse epidemic and to delay the introduction of measures to combat the spread of the disease. It publicized the experiments which justified its case and ignored those which didn't. As a consequence even more people will have been infected by bse meat. Animal experiments are a political tool not a scientific one.

XII.B: Animal Experiments Prove Nothing.

One commentator has suggested that, "The fact that scrapie could be transferred to Rodents (Rats, Mice and Hamsters) has taught us many lessons." [45] Quite what these lessons are is not indicated. He repeats the same claim later but once again without an explanation .. "studies of Sheep, Mice and Hamsters are the basis of our current understanding. Without those pioneers of the past we would be faced with a future of intimidating mystery." [46] Nothing of scientific value has been learnt from bse experiments on Animals which couldn't have been learnt from observation, epidemiology, and post-mortem examinations.

XII.C: Animal Experiments Kill Oomans.

In the early 1970s, hans reusch showed that Animal experiments are useless in predicting how a new substance will affect ooman health. He argued this is because firstly, the physiology/chemistry/metabolism/genetic makeup of each species is different and, secondly, there is a considerable range of variations within each species e.g. one ooman does not react in exactly the same way as another to a particular substance. Reusch argued that Animal experiments are useful for giving the go-ahead for the marketing of new substances which are later found to damage ooman health. He concluded that Animal experiments do not protect ooman health; they cause ooman fatalities.

The bse-cjd crisis is yet further proof of the validity of reusch's assertion - Animal experiments are a scientific fraud used by scientific frauds to protect the interests of their multi-national corporation paymasters. To date, september 1997, twenty two people are dead from bse-cjd. It is highly likely these people contracted the disease before bse was even recognized as a new disease. But, in the future there will doubtlessly be many people who will die because, over the last ten years, the tory government deliberately used Animal experiments to suggest that beef was bse-free when it wasn't.

The bse epidemic helps to expose the scientific futility of Animal experiments. The main point of Animal experiments is to determine whether a substance will be safe for ooman consumption. The assumption underlying these experiments is that experimental Animals are more sensitive to a disease than oomans. Animals experiments are absurd if it turns out that oomans are more sensitive to a disease than the Animals on which oomans are experimenting. This suggests that all Animal experiments are pointless because it can never be known a priori whether Animals are more or less susceptible to a disease than oomans. Furthermore, it is ridiculous to believe that Animal experiments could provide an indication of bse's impact on oomans when another fundamental assumption of Animal experiments is invalid i.e. the closer the evolutionary proximity of Animals to oomans the more reliable the results of Animal experiments will be in predicting the effect on oomans. It is yet more ludicrous when Cattle are more susceptible to bse than Mice - far less bse is needed to kill Cattle than to kill Mice. It is possible that oomans are also more susceptible to the disease than Mice.

XII.D: Animal Experiments as a Smokescreen.

The government did not need to carry out Mice experiments to determine whether various Cattle tissues are infectious. It did not need to carry out any Animal experiments. All it needed to do was develop a test to ascertain the presence of bse in Cattle. But it did not dare allow this to happen because it would have meant the death-knell for the livestock industry in this country - it would show that virtually every part of a Cow or Sheep could be infected, to one degree or another, with bse and it would show exactly how many diseased Animals were passing through the abattoirs into the ooman feed chain. As a consequence, fourteen years after the disease was first noticed, there is still no test for bse. FOURTEEN YEARS. The last thing the tory government wanted is a test to protect consumers from bse-infected livestock.