CJD victims' families to get compensation

Families of victims of CJD, the human form of BSE, "mad cow disease", will be offered a "no-fault" compensation package by the Government this week with the publication of the long-awaited report on the causes of BSE.

Families of victims of CJD, the human form of BSE, "mad cow disease", will be offered a "no-fault" compensation package by the Government this week with the publication of the long-awaited report on the causes of BSE.

A trust will be set up for the 84 families and the children of the victims and compensation will be made available for future victims of the disease, for which there is no known cure.

The Agriculture minister, Nick Brown, and Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, will also announce an enhanced care package for the handful of victims believed to have the disease and who are still alive.

Ministerial sources involved in the decision said it would not stop victims' families from taking legal action for more compensation, but the ex-gratia payments from the trust are aimed at demonstrating the Government's support for their plight. "We have compensated the farmers and abattoirs who helped to cause BSE; we have to do something for the victims," one minister said.

The inquiry report by Lord Phillips, to be published on Thursday, is less explicit in its blame for the Tory ministers who were in power at the time of the BSE outbreak than many Labour supporters had hoped.

It criticises individual ministers, including John Gummer and Stephen Dorrell, for their reassurances that beef was safe, but is unlikely to damage the current Tory leadership.

"You have to read between the lines to see who was to blame," said a minister. "It's very closely worded and it's a bit of a whitewash."

Former officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are expected to bear the brunt of the criticism for the development of cattle feed that led to the disease, and failures to ensure that infected meat did not get into the food chain.

However, ministers last week were startled by one assertion in the report: that BSE may have been caused by a cow that "mutated" after being fed infected feed. A genetic change in cattle could create more fears about the eradication of the disease which is continuing to cause anxiety, including last week the withdrawal of polio vaccinations that may have been infected.

The Government has decided to make a special case of the CJD victims because of the compensation already offered to the beef industry totalling about £3bn. The victims of the BSE outbreak can expect to get pay-outs running to five figures.