PM fights to avert new panic over BSE

Politicians, farmers, and the meat industry yesterday united to allay renewed fears about the safety of British beef, following the first direct experimental evidence of a link between "mad cow disease" and a fatal new form of brain disease in humans.

The Prime Minister, John Major, declared that beef was "perfectly safe" and urged the European Union not to "panic" after EU officials seized the opportunity to rule out a relaxation of the beef export ban.

Mr Major's attempt to reassure consumers, as the Festival of British Beef opened in London, received the backing of Professor John Pattison, the chairman of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, which gives independent advice to the Government on the crisis. Professor Pattison said that the precautions now in place on farms, abbattoirs, and in meat processing, meant that he would eat beef "without any reservations."

Since March, when 10 cases of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD), a degenerative brain disease, were reported, the Government and scientists had assumed a link with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). There are now 12 confirmed cases and two more strongly suspected.

Speaking on Today on Radio 4, Professor Pattison said the new research published in yesterday's issue of Nature gave no new clues as to whether there would be an epidemic of nvCJD. The crucial factor would be the average incubation period of nvCJD which may not be known for many years.

Professor Pattison said that a situation similar to that of HIV in the UK - 26,000 cases in Britain in the last 13 years - could not be ruled out. "We are not in a position yet to exclude the possibility of those numbers of cases," he said.

Professor Pattison said that development of drugs which would slow the progress of nvCJD was now a priority, echoing the plea by Professor John Collinge, principle author of the Nature paper, for investment in therapeutic research. Drug companies are reluctant to commit funds to a disease until they know how many people will be affected and their chances of recouping their investment.

Stephen Dealler, a consultant microbiologist at Burnley General Hospital who warned of the risk to humans long before the Government took action, says that of 26 companies he has contacted, none intend to pursue research in this field.

Professor Collinge and colleagues at the Imperial College School of Medicine at St Mary's Hospital, London, have discovered that a molecular marker in a protein known as a prion, in nvCJD, is very similar to that in the prion protein in cattle and other animals with BSE, but distinct from that in other forms of CJD in humans. This greatly strengthens the hypothesis that nvCJD is a consequence of people eating beef from BSE infected cattle.

The National Farmers' Union and the Meat and Livestock Commission said there was no cause for public concern, but families of CJD victims are calling for an independent judicial inquiry into the Government's handling of the beef crisis. The Labour leader Tony Blair yesterday accused the Government of "total and utter incompetence all the way through".