Handling the BSE Epidemic in Great Britain

Henry Ford thought that hlstory was bunk; Hegel is supposed to have said that “people and governments never have learnt anything from history,” and Disraeli advised us to “read no history.” The authors of this chapter are less dismissive, taking the alternative view that those who ignore history are destined to repeat It, which is the view that underscores this essay on the response to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE); an unforeseen disease, induced by human activity, that had important impacts on government and veterinary and medical affairs. It is unlikely that such an event will occur again, at least in exactly the same way, but it is worth telling the story of how scientific findings contributed in planned and unplanned ways and how the complex nexus of regulations, the legislature, the media, and international relations developed; we learned lessons along the way that we believe could be applied with profit in the face of another such epidemic. The account is not intended to be comprehensive: It is a selective and incomplete history that concentrates on the most important issues. A chronology (see Table 1 ) that relates events to control measures gives further details, and a brief reading list is provided for those who wish to study the subject in greater detail.