Britain's disastrous brain mix-up leads to confusion about
BSE in sheep and 2,17 000 pound loss.
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British government has unearthed a Himalayan blunder!
Committed by research scientists peering down on thousands
of brain tissues. The study was meant to examine sheep
brains for BSE. The brain samples examined in the
study were all bovine and infected with BSE. The blunder
was noticed only when samples of the brain material
were sent to the Laboratory of the Government Chemist
for DNA analysis…but for this accidental finding…millions
of sheep may have been doomed to the gallows.
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A 5 year study with a budget of £217,000 meant to
examine sheep brains has been all mixed up with no conclusive
results being drawn. Worse, the research methodology depended
on an ancient, archaic test to confirm BSE, even in the
light of recent progress in the field and the availability
of better and quicker methods of confirmation. The new test,
the results and methodology of which were published nearly
two years ago languish as a research paper in Lancet. The
test developed by Professor John Collinge, director of the
Medical Research Council's prion research unit is considered
a breakthrough in investigating BSE. Conventional methods
of confirming BSE are time consuming and involve laborious
and rigourous testing in laboratory mice.
According to the older protocol of confirming the presence
of BSE, brain samples from a single animal needed to be
injected in to the brains of 100-200 mice, which are then
observed for as long as 3 years to see if they develop the
disease. Collinge who has perfected a faster testing process
which is independent of the use of animals and which needs
only two weeks to confirm results has been left unapplied
to occupy journal space and academic interest. Sheep infected
with BSE cannot be distinguished from scrapie. According
to Professor Peter Smith, chairman of the Spongiform Encephalopathy
Advisory Committee (SEAC), the experiment involved testing
for BSE in what was thought to be 2,860 brains from sheep
which had died of scrapie between 1990 and 1992. Only nine
cattle brains, from more than 170,000, have been strain-typed,
so the existence of other less common BSE strains is possible.
