Letter: Questions that scientists must answer on mad cow disease

Sunday 06 February 1994 00:02 GMT

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THE questions that need answering are: how many cattle are infected? What percentage of them are we eating? How infectious is their tissue? Can humans become infected at all with BSE? How much BSE infectivity would be needed to infect us by mouth? If we eat a small amount every day is this the same risk as eating a large amount of BSE in one go?

None of these important experiments is being carried out. At the moment the major experiment that is being done is the feeding of large amounts of beef to the population and then waiting to see if we die.

The research should go ahead.

Dr Stephen Dealler

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Research Campaign

York

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