Addenda

1. Scientific Predictions about a Fall in the Number of Bse Infected Cattle are off the mark.

February 1989: Southwood Predicts Bse will Disappear by early 1990 (Yes that's right - 1990).

Richard southwood was the first to predict the end of the bse disaster. If this had been accurate it would have been a truly amazing accomplishment considering his estimate came only four years into a disease which, so far, has lasted for 15 years. Unfortunately, it was so inaccurate it seems highly suspicious. His estimate of the total number of Cattle likely to be affected by bse was a wild and irresponsible underestimate .. "in 1994 the number of cases rose to 137,000 six times greater than Southwood's worst case scenario." [1] The total number of bse cases so far is 176,000.

September 1996: Southwood Predicts Bse will Disappear by 2001.

In September 15th 1996 southwood suggested the government's cull of Cattle could eliminate bse in brutland by 2001. [2] This was a mere five months after the announcement of the 10 bse-cjd victims and at the start of the general cull of Cattle over 30 months of age and the specific cull of Cattle in bse-infected herds. Southwood predicts only another 4,200 Cattle would die of bse. He concludes that the impact of the cull agreed at the florence summit will be negligible in speeding up the eradication of bse. As far as he is concerned the only type of cull which could bring about the immediate eradication of bse is mass slaughter. Because this is not economically viable he recommends the cull might as well be suspended. It is not known whether anderson was a part of southwood's team that compiled this report.

Lacey's response to this prediction is tart, "These people come from the same department that got it wrong before." In his view, "The conclusions are a fraud." And he added, "Scrapie has been endemic for 200 years; why should bse disappear?" [3]

November 1996: Anderson Predicts Bse will Disappear by mid-1998.

On november 27th 1996, anderson took over from southwood and suggested the cull of Cattle had been so extensive that bse would die out by mid 1998, "Britain may already have fulfilled its promise to europe to cull Cattle at risk from "mad cow disease", a leading scientist (sic) said yesterday. There may be just 150 Cattle in brutland under 30 months old likely to develop the disease bse - and the epidemic could be over by mid-1998. But roy anderson of oxford said yesterday there was no way of knowing for certain that brutland had already kept its side of the florence agreement .. Cattle more than 30 months old are being killed at the rate of 60,000 a week - close to a million since the scheme was started - but no records have been kept of their ages, "Very many more Animals are being slaughtered than any of the selected cull schemes suggested in the florence agreement, and one's suspicion (sic) is that the florence agreement has been met already." Yesterday he revealed that new studies suggested that - with extra killing aimed at older Animals most likely to develop bse - the disease could be effectively wiped out by mid-1998. "Very many more animals are being slaughtered than any of the selected cull schemes suggested in the florence agreement, and one's suspicion is that the florence agreeement has been met already," he said." [4]

March 1998: Anderson Predicts Bse will Disappear by 2001.

In march 1998 anderson retreated from his wild and extravagant claims made in november 1996 and suggested that bse will virtually die out by 2001 .. "the bse epidemic was likely to have dwindled to only a handful of new cases by 2001." [5]

September 1998: Anderson Believes Bse will be at a low level in 2001.

In mid 1998 anderson repeated his belief that the numbers of bse infected Cattle would virtually die out by 2001, "Roy Anderson, of Oxford University, said that he still believed the bse epidemic was close to its end, and would be at an extremely low level by 2001." [6]

February 1998: Pattison Predicts only 89 Cases of Bse in 2001.

In february 1998 john pattison believed the disease in Cattle was rapidly disappearing and predicted that .. "the annual number of new cases of bse would drop to 235 animals by the year 2000, and no more than 89 by the following year." [7]

April 2000: Swiss predict Bse will die out in 2007.

Rather strangely, a swiss team conclude that bse in brutland will soon die out, again, but this time in 2007, "The bse epidemic in britain is expected to die out by the year 2007, according to an independent assessment of the spread of the disease by swiss scientists. Researchers at the institute of animal neurology at bern university and the swiss federal veterinary office suggest there may be only isolated cases of bse after 2007." [8] One wonders just how much understanding of the prion diseases these statisticians have.

2. Scientific Predictions about Mad Pharmer Fatalities.

February 1989: Southwood Predicts No Fatalities from Bse-cjd.

Southwood believes that oomans won't catch mad pharmer disease because Cattle are a end-host.

November 1996: Cjdsu Predicts Hundreds will Die but that Fatalities will Peak in 2003.

On november 27th 1996, the cjdsu predicted there would be hundreds of bse-cjd fatalities and that the peak of these fatalities would occur in 2003, "The lancet confirmed yesterday that members of the government funded cjd surveillance unit in edinburgh had submitted a paper proposing on the future course of the epidemic. The study is reported to say that there could be hundreds of victims of the new variant cjd each year, with a peak in about seven years." [9]

November 1996: Cjdsu Predicts Hundreds will Die but that Fatalities will Peak in 2003?????

In june 1996 hallberg created a model of the bse epidemic which predicted, with great precision, that 78 people would die of bse-cjd up until 2002 with a peak of 19 cases in 1998. In September 1996 he created a new model which predicted a total of 160 deaths, "This analysis showed that around 51000 seriously sick cows have been eaten in England over the years. A similar analysis to count all infected cattle ends up in 1.17 million eaten infected cows. The life distribution for an infected person was assumed to be similar to the cows in the absence of other information. The relation between the number of eaten mad cows and human deaths was optimised (by varying only one constant) to give the best fit to actual measured numbers in 1994-1996. Initially (June 1996) it was estimated that 78 people were expected to die until the year 2002 with a peak of 19 cases in 1998. In September 1996 a new estimate arrived at total 160 dead people based on the numbers being reported at that time. It appears that the initial estimate may have be more correct since 17 cases were reported in 1998 and a decline was shown 1999 just as predicted at that time." [10]

August 1997: Smith Predicts at least some hundred.

"Peter Smith, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and another member of seac, said the relatively low rate of new diagnosed cases made estimates of "millions of future victims look rather implausible. I think the final toll will be at least some hundred or more. I would be much more concerned if there had been a rapid increase over the last year. More cases are going to occur for some years, even decades, to come."" [11]

February 1998: Pattison Predicts between 100-1500 Cases of Bse-cjd.

"The number of people who will die from the human form of "mad cow" disease is likely to be relatively small ... Pattison said the total number of deaths was unlikely to exceed 1,500 and could be as low as 100." [12]

3. The Countries Refusing to Lift the ban on bse-infected Brutish Beef.

One commentator argues that 16 countries around the world currently ban bse-infected brutish beef. Another that, "British beef is still banned in 48 countries." [13]

The United States;

Germany - "British beef will continue to be banned in germany - despite being declared safe to eat." [14]

Russia - "Russian agriculture officials last night said they were keeping a ban on british beef." [15]

Iran;

Australia;

New zealand;

South africa.

4. The Loons Covering up the Spread of Bse: the 'No Such thing as Bse' Propagandists.

A number of individuals and organizations dismiss the possibility that bse could be passed to oomans. They have been promoting bse denialism.

4.1: Seac Scientists.

Bradley, Ray.

"The limits of scientific knowledge were reflected in a 1988 memo by Ray Bradley, who co-ordinated early research and is still a member of Seac. 'We cannot answer the question 'is bse transmissable to humans?'" [16]

Kimberlin, Richard.

"I am afraid i am a heretic in that i am one of those very few dreadful people that doesn't believe in prions, but i don't think that should worry you too much, because actually we don't know enough about the chemical nature of these agents for it to be particularly helpful in the debate, at least not chemically." [17] For a fuller outline of kimberlin's views see the section dated May 30th 1999.

Pattison, John.

"John pattison, the new man in charge of seac, stated that there was no current evidence that bse gave rise to cjd and he had not changed his eating habits." [18] This seems to overlook what might seem, to an unbiased outside observer who isn't receiving vast sums of money from the pharming industry, like an even more important consideration - namely that "there is no current evidence that bse did not give rise to cjd."

Smith, Peter.

"Peter Smith, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and another member of SEAC, said the relatively low rate of new diagnosed cases made estimates of "millions of future victims look rather implausible. I think the final toll will be at least some hundred or more. I would be much more concerned if there had been a rapid increase over the last year. More cases are going to occur for some years, even decades, to come."" [19]

4.2: Scientists.

Prusiner, Stan.

Stan Prusiner denied that bse and bse-cjd are spongiform diseases, "A few weeks ago, in evidence to the bse inquiry, the nobel laureate Stan Prusiner, originator of the infectious prion protein hypothesis of bse and similar diseases, said that he could not understand the statistical argument underlying the British claim that the small number of cases of new variant cjd are a human form of bse." [20]

Doll, Richard.

"Richard doll, the epidemiologist from oxford, made it clear that he thought the risk (of bse) was too small to worry about ..."[21]

Hueston, Will: USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services & Harley Moon, Center Director Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

"Can you get bse from eating beef? No. Scientific evidence indicates that bse cannot be transmitted from infected Cattle to humans through physical contact or consumption of beef or dairy products. The World Health Organization does not consider bse to be a human health hazard based on current scientific evidence." [22] Well thank goodness for that.

4.3: The Media.

Sun.

Prior to the government's march 1996 announcement of 10 bse-cjd victims, the sun had dismissed the threat posed by bse, "Let's remember the massive scares over salmonella in eggs and listeria in yoghurt. Neither turned out to be serious long-term threats to our health." [23]

Daily Express.

A mere three months before the march 1996 announcement, the daily express was trumpeting on its front page the news that bse was 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 humans to cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are extremely remote."[24] It seems peculiar that the journalists in this newspaper who pride themselves on being tough and being able to see through contricks, hoaxes and publicity stunts, etc, should pay so much attention to what Mice have to tell them. (Cartoon - small Mouse whispering into the ear of a media tycoon 'Believe me, there's no such thing as bse'). Perhaps if the Mice hadn't been tortured before telling them this lie they might have told them the truth but these media hacks obviously haven't understood the first lesson of their trade - that people tend to say whatever their torturers want to hear.

Mirror and the Bse-on-the-Bone Ban.

"Lifting the ban on beef on the bone is the final move in one of the mosty appalling episodes in britain's recent history." [25]

New Scientist

There was a surprisingly derogatory comment in a 'new scientist' editorial sneering at the bse controversy as if this magazine, which prides itself on its adherence to scientific method, believed the fact that the brutish government's failure to investigate the prevalence of bse in brutish herds was an example of good science whilst the french were being unscientific for cArrying out such an investigation, "The sale of british beef in france - which french scientists are alone in thinking might harbour significant risks of infection with bse ..." [26]

4.4: Media Journalists.

The Pro-Meat/Pro-Pharmers Bias of News Journalists.

Throughout the bse and bse-cjd epidemics news journalists slavishly followed the government's line and were dedicated to packaging mass murdering pharmers as innocent victims. When the announcement of 10 bse-cjd victims was made in march 1996, the media instantly transformed the epidemic from a health issue into an industrial issue. Instead of highlighting the news of these fatalities with the headline 'Health crisis' bbc news adopted the headline 'Beef Crisis' - in other words, the problem wasn't that ten people were dead from a disease that pharmers had said would never afflict ooman health, it was the fall in beef sales which threatened to bankrupt many of the poisoners. It's not surprising that the media gave the issue such an appalling make-over when news journalists such as john snow for channel four; dermot murnaghan for itv; and jeremy paxman for bbc2's 'newsnight', to name but a few, are all self-confessed carnivores.

Murnaghan, Dermot.

Dermot murnaghan is a pro-meat news readers on terrestrial television. In 1998 he presented a television programme making wild allegations that the Animal rights movement was responsible for causing anorexia in young girls. Rather strangely, however, he seemed reluctant to criticize the pharming industry for causing bse-cjd in young girls which results in them losing dramatic amounts of weight ... before eventually losing their minds. In the programme murnaghan seemed to condone the forced feeding of meat to anorexic girls. So, perhaps girls with bse-cjd ought to be force-fed with prime beef before they die, eh murnaghan?

In january 1998 murnaghan treated a sales campaign by the corpse industry as an important news item. The same press release from the meat and livestock industry was also picked up by the daily furrier, "A £2 million campaign aimed at encouraging beefeaters to buy britsh was launched yesterday. The drive follows evidence that nearly 75% of consumers prefer to eat home-grown beef. Organized by the meat and livestock commission the goal is to convert people to british beef and put pressure on importers to shop at home."[27] Now that's what i call real news.

Snow, John

John snow is one of the most respected news journalists on terrestrial television and yet he didn't get around to asking whether bse might be present in Cattle blood, thus requiring a complete ban on beef, until thursday february 26th 1998.

On june 1st 1998 channel four news gives an update on their investigation into the increasing numbers of pharmers covering up the spread of bse by dumping bse-infected Cattle. They discovered at least 20 open pits in the north of england and scotland. When snow interviewed jack cunningham the line of questioning he pursued wasn't how awful it was that pharmers were behaving illegally and irresponsibly but how bad the government was for not offering the pharmers yet more subsidies to have their livestock disposed of properly.

On june 9th 1998, snow interviewed channel four's science correspondent and is told that europe may be on the verge of rescinding the global ban on bse infected beef. Snow, a carnivore, greets the news with the usual journalistic impartiality for which he is renowned, "A tremendous achievement." [28]

Paxman, Jeremy.

Jeremy paxman has lampooned Animal rights issues on a number of occasions. He once carried out an interview on bbc2's newsnight programme between an Animal rightist and an angler and continually interrupted the Animal rightist whilst allowing the angler to waffle on without any restrictions. The mundi club has decided to award him the prize for the 'worst interviewer on television'.

Journalists and Broadcasters should be Forced to declare their Interests.

The above journalists are simply not impartial where bse and pharmers are concerned. The interests of all journalists reporting on these issues ought to be declared in the same way as mps interests in parliament. This might also stop journalists from giving publicity to their favourite causes.

4.5: Media Commentators.

Carroll, Sue.

Carroll is a beefed-up journalist who works for the fur loving mirror - employed apparently for her politically conventional views, "Here's my new year resolution .. eat red meat, drink, smoke ..." [29]

Jenkins, Simon: Taking Measures to Combat Bse is Scientific terrorism - but anyone smoking a few Joints is a total risk to health.

Simon jenkins believes that measures to combat bse are akin to scientific terrorism, "You will recall that bse led to one of the worst outbreaks of mad-politician disease in 1995-97. Nobody today should need warning to be cautious. The outbreak followed a tiny number of cases of human cjd, which had been tenuously linked to bse in cattle. (oh dear, oh dear). Bse was caused by polluting cattle feed with infected cow tissue, a practice stopped some years earlier. (Simple simon - this just wasn't true). Twenty-seven deaths have been attributed to cjd, many fewer than to such food poisons as E. coli or salmonella which we seem to take in our stride. Yet as a result of the resulting hysteria, and with continental farmers eagerly in the van, the beef industry was devastated. Tens of thousands of cattle were fed to power stations and some £5 billion of public money was squandered. The root cause was a group of scientists changing an "inconceivable risk" of contracting cjd from eating beef (in 1995) to a "very small" one (in 1996)." [30]

Jenkins devalues the threat posed by bse by regarding bse-cjd as being less important than outbreaks of E. coli or salmonella 'which we take in our stride' because only 27 people (at that time) had died from the disease. It is quite true that (at that time) more people had died from food poisoning or meningitis than from bse-cjd but there was no way of knowing prior to the emergence of the disease how many people would be affected. The threat posed by bse was that, unlike other food poisoning cases, it had the potentiality for causing huge numbers of deaths. Currently it is 48. Secondly, highlighting general food poisoning cases shouldn't be used as an opportunity to dismiss bse but to justify severe measures to curb such outbreaks. Jenkins is far more concerned with heaping even more subsidies onto pharmers than taking drastic measures to curb bse or food poisoning. (I thought he was a thatcherite?).

Jenkins's mathematics is so appalling that he verges on the numerically illiterate, "Even at the height of the scare, the risk of any Briton ever catching cjd from beef was put at between one in 50 million and one in a billion, surely the bottom of any Richter scale of danger. In which case, the risk now of catching cjd from sheep which "might" have inherited bse from some leakage into flocks years ago would defy even the most fantastical risk theorist. Seac had told the Government's Chief Medical Officer that there were "no grounds" for taking action on sheep." [31] This is stark, staring, stupidity. To argue that the odds of anyone catching bse-cjd are one in a billion when 27 people out of a population of 50 million have already died from the disease beggars belief. This isn't rational argument, it's sheer madness. People like jenkins ought to be locked up in a secure unit for the arithmetically insane. He ought to have been made to learn his 3 rs and risk tables at school instead of being allowed to write such fantasy.

Young, Hugo.

The country's intelligentsia barely noticed the bse issue, let alone denounced the government and pharming industry for spreading this disease, but then most of them are spongy-brained carnivores. Hugo young didn't seem to show much interest in the announcement of the bse-cjd fatalities. He didn't seem to be in the least bit peturbed by the government's incessant lies in defence of the livestock industry, nor by the appalling mass destruction of Cattle, let alone the destruction of the Earth's life support system by the Animal exploitation industry. What concerned this oomano-imperialist bigot was the survival of a piddling number of ooman eggs which vivisectors had been chopping up in their laboratories but which were too small to be fried and served with chips in a greasy cafe, "This is a day that should not be diminished. Something of moment is happening that has not happened before. The mass destruction of human embryos under supervision of an agency of the state, is a milestone in the affairs of men, women and children. Let it pass by, and we conspire in the normalizing of organized death." [32] For this windowless, air-conditioned, debeaked, factory pharm, writer the slaughter of millions of real, living, breathing, Animals is nothing in comparison to the slaughter of invisible, ooman embyroes. There could hardly be a clearer example of the moral vacuity and irrelevance of the brutish intelligentsia concerning life on this Planet.

Some years later young wrote an article about bse, "Sending ministers to jail for gross policy disasters is an attractive option, seldom if ever implemented. What touches the real lives of voters are the public errors of public people, for which society would like to demand the personal vengeance that never seems to be available. Some years ago France, of all countries, positioned itself to nullify this infuriating immunity. It got ready to indict and jail former ministers for the errors that led to hiv-contaminated blood being given to haemophiliacs and hospital patients, as a result of which more than 4,000 people were infected, of whom about 1,000 have died. The concept of ministerial responsibility for departmental events was invested with the harsh meaning it deserves. This was, admittedly, an extreme case. A thousand coffins are themselves political. But there are pre-echoes of the bse scandal in Britain, which received a different response. Even 1,000 coffins, one suspects, would in Britain be buried effortlessly under the mound of systemic failure rather than personal culpability which is and always has been the whitehall way of deflecting blame. In the case of bse, if the French model were adopted, John MacGregor and Kenneth Clarke, respectively agriculture and health ministers in early 1989, would be in the dock. This was when the effect of feeding recycled animal remains to cows was incontestably established as the cause of bse, though the suspicion was there much earlier, in 1985, from which date the names of Jopling and Fowler might surface as parallel culprits. At neither point was the full extent of scientific pessimism taken on board by the politicians. A bovine offal ban was delayed until later in 1989, and the effect of bse as a cause of human variant cjd, though again canvassed by scientists, was discounted by ministers for many more years. Behind these underlings sat Margaret Thatcher, the Laurent Fabius of her place and day, and the embodiment of the political context in which the bse disaster was allowed to start. For the Fabian deformity of anti-Americanism, read the thatcherite pride in bonfires of red tape. It was a time when de-regulation ruled. On close calls, neither agriculture nor health could have afforded to show a bias in favour of action that would hit animal-feed merchants or intensify inspection regimes. This was the free-market revolution. It meant that even when animal feed was controlled, the policing was cursory and bse made its fatal way ever deeper into the human food chain, as a result of which, at last count, 32 people have died. The idea of putting Thatcher in a court-room dock, for the bse fatalities in which her policies had at least some causative role, would be an unimaginable affront to the British mind-set."[33]

Editor, Country Life.

"Some farmers have already gone to the wall over bse. Very few if any new cases of cjd in young people (with which there may conceivably be a link with bse) (sic) have appeared since the spring. So it may yet be that more deaths will result from farmers committing suicide than from children eating hamburgers." [34]

There have been 53 bse-cjd fatalities so far so let's hope a far greater number of livestock pharmers have committed suicide. If any pharmer needs assistance please give us a call.

4.6: Non-Governmental Organizations.

Institute of Food Science & Technology

The ifst thoroughly disliked the idea that brutland's wonderful, modern, high-tech, beef industry could generate fatal diseases and did its best to downplay the threat posed by bse .. "there is no direct scientific evidence demonstrating that bse can be transmitted from Cows to humans, and some research evidence suggesting failure to transmit." [35] ; "The emergence in the uk during the past two years of ten anomalous cases of creutzfeldt-jakob disease of a previously unrecognised pattern, reviewed by the cjd surveillance unit (cjdsu), led the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), style="mso-spacerun: yes"> in the absence of other explanation at present, to the conjecture that the u.k. cases were "most likely" to have been caused by exposure to infected Cattle brain or spinal cord before 1989 (at which time they were banned from the food chain); but examination of the research on which that conjecture was based reveals little or no substance for it." [36] ; "A term which has been used elsewhere, "vanishingly small risk of causing cjd", conveys more to scientists than to the general public, so here, in relation to consuming beef muscle meat, we have adopted the phrase "virtually no risk of causing cjd, i.e. safe within the normal meaning of the term.""[37]

4.7: Politicians.

Maclean, David.

Maclean was one of the tory government's most rabid, pro-beef loons, a veritable biped pit bull terrorist who simply refused to contemplate that bse could infect oomans, "Even the most elementary scientist knows that this disease cannot be passed from cow to cow like an infection." [38] (Oh dear). He believed it was inconceivable that oomans could contract bse because the tories had done everything that could possibly be done to prevent the spread of the disease, "We have so many safety belts and braces on this operation it's untrue." [39] (Oh dear). What is so odious about maclean is that as far as is known he has never apologized for his errors and gross incompetance. He doesn't seem to have expressed any shame whatsoever about his role in the deaths of 53 people. Bigots like maclean should be put on trial for crimes against humanity.

Jeff Rooker

Jeff rooker was appointed to the maffia by tony blair in order to bring about the separation of interests between producers and consumers. However, the maffia's indoctrination of labour politicians was so effective that shortly after entering the hallowed ministry of diseases, he was sounding like a life-long pharmer. He played down the spread of bse around the country by protesting that, "Of the 120,000 farmers with Cattle in the country, two-thirds have never had a case of bse. And most of those who have are the dairy herds involved in milk production. .. of the beef suckler herds 84% have never had a case of bse." [40] What this statement ignores is the fact that many pharmers disposed of many bse cases or sold bse infected Cattle on the open market. Even worse is the pretence that dairy herds are totally different from beef herds when almost all Cattle in beef suckler herds come from dairy herds.

Rooker trots out a simple statistical contrick for dismissing the prevalence of bse by saying that the number of herds affected by bse is miniscule - if the huge number of pharms which had only one case of bse is ignored, "And it gets smaller when you discount farms who have only had one case of bse. Roughly 35,000 farms have had bse. But 12,000 of those have only a single case." [41] What better way is there of dismissing the prevalence of a disease than by discounting pharms with the disease?

The fact that some herds had only a few cases of bse is more frightening than might be suspected. Whilst it is true that some pharmers hid subsequent cases of bse in order to protect their herds' reputation it is quite possible that this fact confirms the hypothesis that bse was being passed on by maternal transmission. If this is the case then it means it will be impossible to eradicate bse from brutish herds. If bse was passed on solely through infected feed then a number of Cattle eating from the same bag of feed should have contracted the disease. In many cases, though, this did not happen because only a few Animals got the disease. This suggests the disease was passed on from mother to offspring.

Rooker's willingness to protect pharmers' interests by distorting the facts could also be seen in another controversial area of modern pharming, "Food minister jeff rooker bungled his gm facts yesterday .. Rooker said that land the size of just two football pitches was being used to test genetically modified produce. The average site, he claimed, was about the size of a dining table. But official figures how there are 717 acres of trial sites, equivalent to 350 pitches." [42]

Gorman, Teresa: Reality is whatever I Want it to be.

"British beef is best. It's perfectly safe."[43] Gorman encouraged brutish people to eat brutish beef primarily to whip up support for euro-scepticism even though the Cattle Registration scheme had not been implemented making it impossible to say whether beef had come from a herd infected by bse. The last thing that brutish pharmers wanted was for their beef to be labelled 'Made in Brutland' - until the last quarter of 1999 when everything went into reverse gear and the nfu demanded labelling.

4.8: Individuals.

Keighley, Rev David.

"A vicar is to hold a public "last supper" in protest at food laws. The rev david keighley's £12.50 feast near st austell, cornwall, will feature beef on the bone and limited-catch Fish." [44] This is a good example of the way the church is rooted in rural areas and props up rural values. The congregation finished off the meal with a few joints - after all, only a complete and utter sponge brain could possibly believe that bse-infected beef was less of a threat to ooman health than dope.

Booker, Christopher and North, Richard.

"Even now, most people have not grasped just how flimsy was the scientific basis for that statement (that there were 10 bse-cjd victims). Indeed, it is astonishing that, before allowing mr dorrell to stand up in parliament, his officials, led by the chief medical officer, kenneth calman, did not subject the scientific advisory committee (seac) to rigorous grilling. The cjd surveillance unit in edinburgh claimed to have identified 10 cases of a new strain of cjd. It had no hard evidence to suggest a probable link between the "new strain" cjd and bse - indeed, its findings subsequently published in the lancet were laughably thin. Why had it done so little research to establish that the strain really was new? Why had it not inquired whether the "new strain" of cjd had already been identified in countries where bse was rare, or even non-existent?" [45]

Butler, the rt reverand Tom.

On radio four, the bishop of leicester condemned the bse-on-the-bone ban as an attack on individual freedom, "The rt rev tom butler .. said the ban was as sensible as a "dinosaur-on-the-bone ban"." [46]

Byrnes, Stephen.

"Bse is probably not caused by cows eating animal parts with their food, a practice which imitates nature, as cows eating fresh grass consume insect larvae and eggs." [47]

Palmer, Jilly.

There's no such thing as Bse .. in Sheep: "Yet another food scare is threatening our health. But having weighed up the evidence I do not believe there is a need to panic. There is and never has been a single case of Bse identified in any of Britain's sheep flocks. Not one of the country's sheep has Bse." [48] But this is only because the government refuses to carry out the tests!

Scruton, Roger:

Believes that People ought to have the right to eat Diseased carcasses which have killed 53 people but not to Smoke a Joint which hasn't killed anyone since it first appeared on Earth.

The fox-hunting, beef-eating, scruton protests about government regulations imposed on pharmers, "And that is how we should see the attack on unpasteurised milk. The Ministry of Agriculture proposed to ban it, for the simple reason that some boffin has discovered microbes that could, perhaps, cause intestinal disorders. This is true: but it is also true of all other sources of animal protein, and unpasteurised milk is at the bottom of the list of offenders. And if people wish to take the risk, why should they be prevented? By what reasoning does the State acquire the right to ban a source of food, on the production of which many people depend for their livelihood, just because there is a possible world in which someone is made ill by it? There is only one reasonable response: Ban Everything." [49] The argument that 'if people wish to take the risk, why should they be prevented' could be used to support the legalization of cannabis. It's amazing that the tories (both conservative and labour) support a ban on Cannabis but oppose bans on bse ridden corpses. It is difficult finding a more striking contrast exposing the sheer bloody-minded, stupidity of the politically conventional mind-set.

4.9: Beef Loving, Anti-Environmentalist, Lefties.

It shouldn't be too surprising to find that many politically conventional, lefties are also beef, and bse, lovers.

Boseley, Sarah

"Regrettably, Sheep's brains are off at st john's restaurant in clerkenwell, near london's smithfield market, where they specialize in "nose to tail eating"." [50]

Fitzpatrick, Michael: Bse is a Figment of a Diseased Society.

To michael fitzpatrick, a marxist critic of capitalist society, bse is not a deadly disease of the brain but a mere figment of a diseased society, a health scare, an irrational fear suffered by people alienated by modern (or is it post modern?) capitalist society, "Public concern about bse spreading to humans (in the form of creuzfeldt-jakob disease, cjd) is the latest in a long line of health scares. The novel feature of the bse/cjd scare, however, is that it is a panic about a disease which does not actually exist. In the increasingly virtual reality of late twentieth-century society, we have a real panic about a virtual disease." [51]

A few months after the publication of this article seac announced the 10 deaths from bse-cjd. This marxist beefy turned psychic investigator came to the conclusion that such deaths constituted no evidence as to the existence of bse and prattled on, "The most telling evidence against the link (between bse and cjd) comes from the laboratory of professor john collinge of st mary's hospital london, where experiments so far suggest that the agent responsible for bse cannot cross the 'species barrier' into humans (see Nature, 21/28 December 1995). In these circumstances, the statement that there is 'no evidence' of a link between bse and cjd remains far more accurate than the revised seac/government line, which misleadingly implies a much stronger link than is supported by the known facts. " [52]

Glancey, Jonathan.

In these days when the Animal exploitation is the leading cause of the devastation of the Earth's life support system for oomans it is not surprising to find lefties insisting on their culinary freedom - 'Nobody is going to tell me what i should put on my plate'. Jonathan glancey argues, "I also wish to be able to eat what i want to eat .." [53]

Green, Emily: The Rubbishing of Harash Narang.

Emily green published an article in new statesman criticizing harash narang, "The only thread remaining between narang and the world of accredited science is his relationship with dr daniel carleton gajdusek, the 73-year-old nobel prize-winning kuru expert. Indeed, in 1987-88, gajdusek did sign three papers with narang - a seemingly weighty validation. Yet, according to his entry in Who's Who, gajdusek has also signed at least another 997 papers. On April 6 of this year, gajdusek was arrested and charged with child abuse. No doubt narang will vault over this credibility problem, bouncing from invention to invention amid the desolation." [54]

Her article was reprinted on the internet where the following comment was added about her, "A search on emily green's prior output found that she is a food correspondent (ex-independent, now new statesman) - a big jump from nouvelle cuisine to scientific criticism! -- correspondent comment). Food correspondents don't become food correspondents by exposing fatal diseases in the meat industry - it might have been thought that even the beefies on new statesman might have understood this.

Routledge, Paul.

"What's all the fuss about? I never stopped eating beef on the bone." [55] The people demanding an end to the bse-on-the-bone ban are often the same people who decry young people for consuming illegal drugs. The consumption of drugs is far less of a threat to ooman health than the consumption of bse-on-the-bone.

Routledge also demands the launch of a campaign to encourage people to eat beef, "Consumers around the world have to be convinced that a slaughter programme that killed more than two million cows, and cost the british taxpayer £4 billion, has finally wiped out mad cow disease." [56] Is routledge suffering from the early symptoms of bse, hallucinations, by believing that one day bse and bse-cjd is going to disappear.

The mirror printed an article trying to understand why sales of the black-top newspapers have been falling dramatically in the late 1990s, "One analyst explained: "Some of them still employ irrelevantly fatuous old dodderers like auberon waugh. I mean what hope is there for them?"[57] It has to be wondered how the mirror survives with journalists like routledge, jilly palmer, and sue carroll.

4.10: The Pharmer-loving, Pro-meat, Greens.

As surprising as this might seem there are quite a few pro-meat, pharmer-loving, greens seeking to downplay bse.

Tucker, Anthony

Anthony tucker highlights prusiner's views because of his own scepticism, "A few weeks ago, in evidence to the bse inquiry, the Nobel Laureate Stan Prusiner, originator of the infectious prion protein hypothesis of bse and similar diseases, said that he could not understand the statistical argument underlying the British claim that the small number of cases of new variant cjd are a human form of bse." [58]

Papworth, John

Papworth is another supporter of culinary freedom in the face of geophysiological meltdown, 'Nobody is going to tell me what i should put on my plate'. It has to be wondered just how stupid people have to be to qualify as a green.

Pearce, Fred.

Pearce believes that bse in Cattle will eventually die out, "In Cows, rates of transmission from animal to animal are sufficiently low that, now exposure to infected feed has been stopped, the disease should die out." [59]

Barnett, Anthony.

In may 1999 barnett argued, "New variant cjd - the human form of bse - has claimed 40 victims so far, but no hard evidence has yet linked it to eating beef." [60]

The Ecologist.

The ecologist is supposedly the country's leading green magazine and objects to the view that bse originated from infected feed. It would much rather blame the chemical industry than pharmers. Not surprisingly in 1999 it printed an article by a pro-meat, pharmer-loving, rustic who sought to legitimize the cannibalistic practices of brutish pharmers by pointing out that Cattle are by nature carnivores, "Bse is probably not caused by cows eating animal parts with their food, a practice which imitates nature, as cows eating fresh grass consume insect larvae and eggs." [61]

4.11: Commentators who Believe Bse will Eventually Die out.

Pearce, Fred.

"In Cows, rates of transmission from animal to animal are sufficiently low that, now exposure to infected feed has been stopped, the disease should die out." [62]

Routledge, Paul.

"Consumers around the world have to be convinced that a slaughter programme that killed more than two million cows .. has finally wiped out mad cow disease." [63]

5. The Wider Views of some of the leading Personalities in the Bse-cjd Disaster.

In any major political controversy the antagonists in the debate inevitably split along fault lines. The fault line in this debate is between rural and urban people. Ruralites support Animal exploitation, Fox hunting, the wearing of fur, beef eating, etc and are dismissive of fears about bse. Urbanites are all too well aware of just how barbaric life is in rural areas. They hope to civilize rural red-necks and curb their violent proclivities. They are more likely to be fearful of bse-infected beef. It is often the case that it is possible to understand some of the deeper motivations underlying the positions adopted by debaters by looking at their wider views. What appears as a reasonable and rational statement in a debate on a particular issue often becomes far murkier when located in its broader ideology.

Calman, Kenneth - Chief Medical Officer.

Calman harbours a politically conventional perspective, style="mso-spacerun: yes"> "Our esteemed chief medical officer, kenneth calman, noted last week a striking increase in hospital admissions and gp consultations for asthma. It now affects two million people he says .. He looks at possible causes and lists .. "genetic predisposition to the illness which can be triggered by various factors including diet, maternal cigarette smoking and indoor and outdoor pollution. The two words that have been studiously avoided are "emissions" and "transport". Calman has a government issue rover 216."[64]

Dicks, Terry.

Terry dicks said, "The disgrace of cardboard city should be broken up. Those we should be looking after are those who have been abused at home. Most of the others are scum. They should be hosed out of shop doorways and moved on." [65]

Gummer, John.

Few commentators have exposed the whacky nature of the politically conventional perspective but john gummer displays such qualities in abundance. As one of the underlings in the maffia empire he ignored the scientific advice of the chair of the government's committee looking into bse. [66] He promoted the anti-scientific stance that eating bse-infected beef was safe. By far the whackiest of his ideas was that in the pharming industry there was nothing unethical about turning herbivores into carnivores. Even worse he saw nothing unethical about turning herbivores into cannibals so that Cattle ate Cattle, Sheep ate Sheep, and Chickens ate Chickens. On the contrary, turning herbivores into carnivores and cannibals was natural. To this stupid, odious, arrogant, stroppy, little crackpot it was vegetarians who were "wholly unnatural".[67] These also seem to be the core values of what is known as christian science - but then given their beliefs in miracles, gods, and the afterlife perhaps this is all too understandable.

Perhaps gummer's views would be a bit less unpalatable if it wasn't for the fact that, "The minister of agriculture, john gummer, is to be reprimanded by mps over his failure to disclose more than £2,000 of work done at his suffolk home by brutland's biggest meat company, hillsdown holdings." [68] Gummer was onto a nice little earner there - pity other people had to pay the price of his corruption. This is just the sort of hypocrisy that people have come to expect from middle class, god-fearing, devout church-goers.

Gummer's understanding of environmental issues is no less perverse, "Mr gummer told the briefing in bonn that the disposal of brent spar .. would not harm the environment. He said there had been 121 north sea rigs for disposal, but only one so far was being disposed of in the atlantic. The rest were for land disposal. The other 280 or so rigs would be dealt with on a case by case basis. The shell rig would not be the only one to be sunk at sea." [69]

However, ever since the trashing of the tory party at the 1997 general election, gummer has started resurrecting himself (only politically of course) as an environmentalist and has done a lot of valuable work emphasizing the dangers of global burning. Gummer has made a remarkable transition from an anti-environmentalist buffoon to someone who is now at the forefront of institutional political protests against environmental destruction. But he's still got a long way to go, "Outside the London (bse) inquiry John Gummer said, "I eat significantly more beef now."" [70] Like many other greens, he just doesn't seem to appreciate that the livestock industry is the bggest cause of global burning.

Lacey, Richard.

Lacey is anti bse-infected beef - he's not against beef per se .. "my family eat a fairly normal diet, including lamb and pork, game when we can get it, poultry, eggs, fish and cheese." [71]

Lacey has been the leading scientific rebel against the maffia's bse policies. His estimates of bse fatalities swings across a broad arc. In the opening few lines of his latest book on bse, he makes what seems to be a quite dramatic reversal of his previous apocalyptic pronouncements about bse, "In the case of cjd .. hundreds or even thousands of britons may already be infected with it, doomed unnecessarily." [72] However he later argues .. "we are now in the grip of the biggest food-poisoning nightmare of them all." [73] And he eventually concludes, "If cjd does, as i have predicted, turn into a full-blown plague, it will make the aids epidemic seem like a common cold." [74]

As a microbiologist lacey can hardly avoid contact with multi-national coporations. This research comes up with some dubious conclusions about the increasing number of cases of patients with resistance to antibiotics .. "my department (in the east anglia health authority) was asked to research this issue with funds provided by the american pharmaceutical company, eli lilly. We launched a five year investigation and our findings .. cleared veterinary antibiotics as the main cause of increased bacterial resistance in human. On the contrary, we discovered that the cause was more likely to have been the over-prescription of human antibiotics by doctors .."[75]

Maclean, David - so-called Food Minister.

Bse-cjd seems to be running amok amongst tory mps who have been publically consuming vast quantities of bse-infected beef to prop up the tories' pharming ideology. David maclean, was a so-called food minister in the early 1990s, and tried to elaborate on john gummer's whacky views. Whilst proclaiming beef was safe to eat he warned the public that eating natural foods could be dangerous. [76] So there we have it - vegan food is more dangerous than bse-infected beef and Cannabis kills far more people than alcohol and tobacco combined.

Maclean was eventually promoted to the home office where he lunged into the 'it's all the beggars' fault' debate in the run up to the 1997 general election, "There are no genuine beggars. They are doing so out of choice because they find it more pleasant. Most beggars are scottish and i've never met one who politely asked for money." [77] This statement came after a month long freeze which kept temperatures close to freezing point. He even threatened them with what might turn out to be a weapon far deadlier than phil windsor's cricket bat, "I always give them (beggars) something - I give them a piece of my mind." [78] After eating so much beef, his brain seems to have turned into a foul, diseased organ. It's hardly surprising that an economic system which generates vast quantities of toxic pollution and lethal diseases should be presided over by a bunch of vile, nasty, revolting little turds such as those in the last tory governments. Interestingly the article on maclean was placed alongside a photograph of spice girl geri halliwell wearing a fur coat. Once the tories had been booted out of office, maclean supported michael howard's candidacy for the tory party leadership.

Routledge, Paul.

The beef loving routledge is a geophysiological ignoramus who supports cars and hates environmentalists. In an article about transport, he starts off brightly but rapidly descends into the politically conventional, "I have never driven a motor car in my life .. So i sympathized with john prescott in his .. car summit yesterday. He has to try and satisfy the potty environmentalists who don't like cars or roads and presumably go to work in a horse and carriage. Yesterday, prezza came down on the right side. He promised to restore many of the road relief schemes scrapped by new labour after they took office. Equally, when i'm at home in the depths of rural yorkshire, i want to be able to get about in the family car. That means i was glad of the keighley by-pass .. If prezza has any trouble on the project with tree-protestors he should hand me the electric saw." [79] If ever routledge needs to be pushed over the edge of cliff because life isn't quite so good with holes in your brain, the mundi club would be pleased to oblige.

Waugh, Auberon.

Waugh issued a sterling defence of the countryside march in london, "The (countryside) march is to protect hunting, to warn town dwellers to keep their distance." [80] Hardly surprising then that his views of global burning border on the loonatic, "Auberon waugh could write in 1991 that 'nobody in a position to know is in the least bit impressed by all this twaddle about Carbon dioxide or global warming .. " [81]

6. The Beefies to Keep an Eye On.

6.1: Political Superstars.

Nicholas Scott.

"Disgraced tory mp sir nicholas scott has suffered a black eye after tumbling from a train." [82]

6.2: Consumer Superstars.

Jeremy Irons.

Jeremy irons is a car loving, speed-loving, fanatical huntin'/shootin'/fishin' green who loves beef. Let's keep an eye out for him.

Angus Dayton.

One of his publicity stunts for comic relief raising funds for starving people in africa was a photo-call of him eating a four-tiered beefburger!! He's one of the few people whose so-called charity work (otherwise known as self-publicity) has helped to kill people by boosting the bse-cjd epidemic. But then this is just about par for the course for many of the current crop of corporate comics. One wonders these days whether alternative comics started telling jokes because they enjoyed making people laugh or because they could make tens of thousands of quid from 10 second adverts advertising the latest Earth wrecking products. As the mundi club is fond of saying 'there's nothing wrong with macdonalds - its the planks that eat there that are the problem.'

6.3: Media Carnivores.

Bernard Ingam.

The bernard manning of downing street. This great fat git is a director of macdonald's who has a prime time slot on bbc breakfast news to spew out his personal bile about the health risks of not eating bse. It's surprising that nobody has forced the bbc to issue a health warning before his loony rants. I have never heard him express any sense of shame for the belligerent way in which he dismissed the possibility that bse could infect oomans.