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British scientist warns

of mad cow epidemic

LONDON: A controversial British scientist on Saturday warned of an epidemic of mad cow disease among humans and poured scorn on government proposals to eradicate the problem in cattle by a mass slaughter.

Microbiologist Richard Lacey, scourge of the government and the beef industry for his dire predictions, also supported the opinion of a leading neurologist that a 15-year-old British girl caught the human form of the brain-wasting disease by eating beefburgers.

"The most likely source of her infection will be poor quality processed beef -- sausages, burgers, stocks," Lacey told reporters.

"My advice is until we have eliminated all the infected herds, and can show that we've eliminated them, avoid beef products," Lacey added.

Countries around the world banned British beef last month after the government acknowledged there could be a link between Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans.

Lacey said the 15 or so confirmed or probable cases of CJD in Britain were the start of an "predictable epidemic curve."

He said it was impossible to forecast the scale of the epidemic but the best scenario would be around 5,000 cases a year by 2015. The worst outcome might be as many as 500,000 cases a year.

Lacey has often been dismissed by farmers and the government as a scaremonger.

But his comments could not have come at a worse time for Britain, which was hoping next week to persuade the European Union to lift its beef ban on the strength of a proposed slaughter of 40,000 older cows.

Neurologist Peter Behan had already set alarm bells ringing by saying he believed that a teenager in Scotland with CJD had caught the disease by eating beefburgers.

The girl, who has not been identified, is believed to be the youngest victim in the world of CJD.

The Scottish hospital said only a post-mortem would provide firm diagnosis of CJD but Behan said he had used a new U.S. test using spinal fluid.

"She has BSE pattern CJD and picked it up through hamburgers. Her parents tell me she had a predilection for hamburgers," Behan said.

Behan added that in his opinion no-one could be sure that British beef was safe to eat.

"The potential for developing this disease must reside in millions of the population, because I am sure there are many people who have eaten infected meat," Behan said.

British farmers, their livelihoods threatened by the collapse of the beef market, accused Behan of causing needless panic.

"I am appalled. This is totally irresponsible. The doctor had no reason to say that. It can only be speculation of the most empty kind," said National Farmer's Union spokesman Martin Haworth.

The health ministry said there was no proven link between BSE and CJD and said it had imposed a ban on bovine offal entering the food chain in 1989 as a precaution against the possibility of the disease being passed onto humans.

But Lacey said it was wrong to assume British beef was now safe or that the government had done enough to eradicate BSE.

"It is ludicrous the government proposing to slaughter 42,000 cattle on the assumption that it will eliminate the disease. It's nonsense.

"BSE is extremely widespread and affects the majority of dairy herds. This action is purely cosmetic and the European Union will discount it," Lacey said.

Doctor Alan Colchester, a consultant treating another three new suspected CJD victims at Guy's hospital in London, urged caution.

"It is quite inappropriate to talk in terms of an epidemic. We are still talking about a very uncommon condition and there seems to me to be confusion between the epidemic of BSE in cattle and a very small increase in a very rare condition which is CJD," Colchester said.-Reuter