Letter: Health risks

Sir: I am astonished by the complacency of the Chief Medical Officer, reported on your front page (15 June). When he says, "Without BSE people might take a more trusting approach," he means, "Without our having been rumbled by BSE we could have carried on walking around in white coats saying, `Trust me, I'm a scientist,' and `Ah, but has it been peer-reviewed?' "

"Health scares sell newspapers," he says. I, for one, do not buy The Independent for its scare stories and I doubt many others do. Is there a scientific basis for this assertion?