IN 1998, an abnormal prion protein was detected in the appendix of a patient
who later developed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). In response,
Kenneth Calman, who was Britain’s Chief Medical Officer at the time, proposed
that any appendix and tonsil tissue removed during routine surgery should be
tested for the prion material.
At the end of June this year, Nick Brown, the minister of agriculture,
fisheries and food, sent a shiver down the spine of many MPs when he announced
that a Holstein cow had developed BSE. The cow was born three weeks after bovine
material was banned from…
