Volume 1: Findings and Conclusions
Executive Summary of the Report of the Inquiry
15. Research

• The Southwood Working Party made wise recommendations in relation to research, not least that an expert committee be set up to advise on this.
• That committee, the Tyrrell Committee, rapidly recommended research priorities which formed the basis of much of the research that followed.
• After some initial delay, BSE research was adequately funded by the Government.
• Attempts to agree that a director, or 'supremo', should oversee and coordinate research were initiated by Sir Donald Acheson but foundered in the face of concerns on the part of the Research Councils and MAFF for their independence.
• Coordination of research effort is desirable in order to achieve:

- identification of gaps in research;
- determination of research priorities;
- identification of the best sources of expert assistance;
- a well-constructed plan for funding from the outset;
- competition for research projects;
- peer review of projects; and
- efficient arrangements for provision of clinical material to researchers.

• A research supremo might have identified the following areas where research could profitably have been started earlier or pursued with more vigour:

- experiments to transmit scrapie to cattle to test the scrapie origin assumption;
- tests for BSE in sheep;
- identification of the minimum infective dose which could transmit BSE orally to cattle;
- assessment of the sensitivity of mice to BSE for use in experiments;
- ante- and post-mortem tests for BSE;
- a test for ruminant protein in compound feed;
- epidemiology.